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A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



WORKS OF W. H. HUDSON 



The Purple Land 

Introduction by Theodore Roosevelt 

A Crystal Age 

Foreword by Clifford Smyth 

Dead Man's Plack and An Old Thorn 

Birds in Town and Village 

Illustrated in color 

Adventures Among Birds 

Head and Tail Pieces after Bewick 

Birds of La Plata (2 vols.) 

Superbly Illustrated 

Far Away and Long Ago 

With Photogravure Portrait 

Idle Days in Patagonia 

Fully Illustrated 

A Traveller in Little Things 



E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

IMPRESSIONS OF THE 
SOUTH WILTSHIRE DOWNS 



BY 



W. H. HUDSON 



ILLUSTRATED BY 

BERNARD C. GOTCH 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 

1921 



New American Edition ^ 



Entirely re-set ^ s jy ^*\ 



Published 1921 V 

By E. P. Dutton & Company $\\ 



All Rights Reserved 



am 

Publisher 

! 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



H 

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02 

A NOTE 

I am obliged to Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co., for 
permission to make use of an article entitled "A Shep- 
herd of the Downs," which appeared in the October and 
November numbers of "Longmans' Magazine," in 1902. 
With the exception of that article, portions of which I 
have incorporated in different chapters, the whole of the 
matter contained in this work now appears for the first 
time. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Salisbury Plain 1 

II Salisbury as I see it 17 

III WlNTERBOURNE BlSHOP 34 

IV A Shepherd of the Downs 45 

V Early Memories 63 

VI Shepherd Isaac Bawcombe 73 

VII The Deer-stealers 84 

VIII Shepherds and Poaching 93 

IX A Shepherd on Foxes 104 

X Bird-life on the Downs 116 

XI Starlings and Sheep-bells 127 

XII The Shepherd and the Bible .... 137 

XIII Vale of the Wylye 145 

XIV A Sheep-dog's Life 159 

XV Concerning Cats 173 

XVI The Ellerbys of Doveton 190 

XVII Old Wiltshire Days 200 

XVIII Old Wiltshire Days (continued) . . . 214 

XIX The Shepherd's Return 236 

XX The Dark People of the Village . . . 245 

XXI Some Sheep-dogs 264 

XXII The Shepherd as Naturalist .... 283 

XXIII The Master of the Village .... 293 

XXIV Isaac's Children 305 

XXV LrviNG in the Past 319 

Index 333 

vii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Old Sarum Frontispiece 



PACK 



Broad Chalke on the Ebble 1 

Turnip Pecking 7 

The Five Rivers of Salisbury 9 

Old Wiltshire Horned Sheep 13 

Salisbury Cathedral from the Avon 17 

Carriers' Carts, Salisbury Market 24 

Stalls in the Market at Salisbury 28 

The Market House, Salisbury 31 

Ebbesborne Wake on the Ebble 34 

Tilshead 39 

Idminster on the Bourne 45 

Harnham Bridge over the Avon at Salisbury ... 48 

Unloading Sheep at the Market 53 

The Hurdlemaker 56 

Shrewton 63 

Shepherd and Flock 69 

Barford St. Martin on the Nadder 73 

Near Rollestone, on Salisbury Plain 75 

Hurdle Pitching 79 

Imber 84 

"Peacocks" at Barford St. Martin 86 

Gomeldon on the Bourne 93 

ix 



x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



Shepherds and their Dogs 98 

Coombe Bissett on the Ebble 104 

Boscombe on the Bourne 107 

Hurdle and Crib Mending Ill 

Winterbourne Stoke 116 

Allington on the Bourne 121 

Upton Lovell on the Wylye 127 

Filling the Cribs 130 

Ansty on the Nadder 137 

Carting Water for the Flock 140 

Codford on the Wylye 143 

Fisherton de la Mere on the Wylye 145 

Titherington Church 149 

Knook Church and Manor House on the Wylye . . 152 

Wishford on the Wylye 155 

Chitterne . 159 

The Lambing Fold 163 

On Guard 172 

Stockton on the Wylye 173 

Winterbourne Earls on the Bourne 176 

Woodford on the Avon 180 

Fovant on the Nadder 182 

The Bourne at Winterbourne Gunner 190 

Salisbury from the Race Course 199 

Fonthill Bishop 200 

Hindon 204 

Courtyard of "The Lamb," Hindon 208 

Swallowcliffe on the Nadder 214 

Joan 218 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

VAGI 

Tithe Barn, Tisbury 233 

Newton Tony on the Bourne 236 

Burcombe on the Nadder 245 

Misselfore, Bower Chalke 264 

In the Fold 268 

Shrewton 283 

Dwarf Oaks in the Great Ridge Wood .... 286 

Chilmark 293 

Orcheston St. Mary 305 

The Head Shepherd 312 

Orcheston St. George 319 

Folding for the Night 330 

White Sheet Hill from the Shaftesbury Road ... 332 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



— — * J. 




BRQ4D Crt/*LKE cm me EbDLE 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



CHAPTER I 
Salisbury Plain 

Introductory remarks — Wiltshire little favoured by tour- 
ists — Aspect of the downs — Bad weather — Desolate 
aspect — The bird-scarer — Fascination of the downs 
— The larger Salisbury Plain — Effect of the military 
occupation — A century's changes — Birds — Old 
Wiltshire sheep — Sheep-horns in a well — Changes 
wrought by cultivation — Rabbit-warrens on the 
downs — Barrows obliterated by the plough and by 
rabbits 

Wiltshire looks large on the map of England, a great 
green county, yet it never appears to be a favourite one 
to those who go on rambles in the land. At all events 
I am unable to bring to mind an instance of a lover of 

1 



2 P A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Wiltshire who was not a native or a resident, or had 
not been to Marlborough and loved the country on ac- 
count of early associations. Nor can I regard myself 
as an exception, since, owing to a certain kind of adap- 
tiveness in me, a sense of being at home wherever grass 
grows, I am in a way a native too. Again listen to any 
half-dozen of your friends discussing the places they 
have visited, or intend visiting, comparing notes about 
the counties, towns, churches, castles, scenery — all that 
draws them and satisfies their nature, and the chances 
are that they will not even mention Wiltshire. They 
all know it "in a way"; they have seen Salisbury 
Cathedral and Stonehenge, which everybody must go 
to look at oncq in his life; and they have also viewed 
the country from the windows of a railroad carriage as 
they passed through on their flight to Bath and to Wales 
with its mountains, and to the west country, which many 
of us love best of all — Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. 
For there is nothing striking in Wiltshire, at all events 
to those who love nature first; nor mountains, nor sea, 
nor anything to compare with the places they are hasten- 
ing to, west or north. The downs ! Ye*s, the downs are 
there, full in sight of your window, in their flowing forms 
resembling vast, pale green waves, wave beyond wave, 
"in fluctuation fixed"; a fine country to walk on in fine 
weather for all those who regard the mere exercise of 
walking as sufficient pleasure. But to those who wish 
for something more, these downs may be neglected, since, 
if downs are wanted, there is the higher, nobler Sussex 
range within an hour of London. There are others on 
whom the naked aspect of the downs has a repelling 
effect. Like Gilpin they love not an undecorated earth; 



SALISBURY PLAIN 3 

and false and ridiculous as Gilpin's taste may seem to 
me and to all those who love the chalk, which "spoils 
everything" as Gilpin said, he certainly expresses a 
feeling common to those who are unaccustomed to the 
emptiness and silence of these great spaces. 

As to walking on the downs, one remembers that the 
fine days are not so many, even in the season when they 
are looked for — they have certainly been few during 
this wet and discomfortable one of 1909. It is indeed 
only on the chalk hills that I ever feel disposed to quarrel 
with this English climate, for all weathers are good to 
those who love the open air, and have their special attrac- 
tions. What a pleasure it is to be out in rough weather 
in October when the equinoctial gales are on, "the wind 
Eurodydon," to listen to its roaring in the bending trees, 
to watch the dead leaves flying, the pestilence-stricken 
multitudes, yellow and black and red, whirled away in 
flight on flight before the volleying blast, and to hear and 
see and feel the tempests of rain, the big silver-grey 
drops that smite you like hail ! And what pleasure, too, 
in the still grey November weather, the time of suspense 
and melancholy before winter, a strange quietude, like 
a sense of apprehension in nature! And so on through 
the revolving year, in all places in all weathers, there is 
pleasure in the open air, except on these chalk hills be- 
cause of their bleak nakedness. There the wind and 
driving rain are not for but against you, and may over- 
come you with misery. One feels their loneliness, monot- 
ony, and desolation on many days, sometimes even when 
it is not wet, and I here recall an amusing encounter 
with a bird-scarer during one of these dreary spells. 

It was in March, bitterly cold, with an east wind 



4 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

which had been blowing many days, and overhead the 
sky was of a hard, steely grey. I was cycling along the 
valley of the Ebble, and finally leaving it pushed up a 
long steep slope and set off over the high plain by a dusty 
road with the wind hard against me. A more desolate 
scene than the one before me it would be hard to imagine, 
for the land was all ploughed and stretched away before 
me, an endless succession of vast grey fields, divided by 
wire fences. On all that space there was but one living 
thing in -sight, a human form, a boy, far away on the 
left side, standing in the middle of a big field with some- 
thing which looked like a gun in his hand. Immediately 
after I saw him he, too, appeared to have caught sight 
of me, for turning he set off running as fast as he could 
over the ploughed ground towards the road, as if intend- 
ing to speak to me. The distance he would have to run 
was about a quarter of a mile and I doubted that he 
would be there in time to catch me, but he ran fast and 
the wind was against me, and he arrived at the road 
just as I got to. that point. There by the side of the 
fence he stood, panting from his race, his handsome 
face glowing with colour, a boy about twelve or thirteen, 
with a fine strong figure, remarkably well dressed for a 
bird-scarer. For that was what he was, and he carried 
a queer, heavy-looking old gun. I got off my wheel and 
waited for him to speak, but he was silent, and continued 
regarding me with the smiling countenance of one well 
pleased with himself. "Well?" I said, but there was no 
answer; he only kept on smiling. 

"What did you want?" I demanded impatiently. 

"I didn't want anything." 



SALISBURY PLAIN 5 

"But you started running here as fast as you could 
the moment you caught sight of me." 

"Yes, I did." 

"Well, what did you do it for — what was your object 
in running here?" 

"Just to see you pass," he answered. 

It was a little ridiculous and vexed me at first, but 
by and by when I left him, after some more conversation, 
I felt rather pleased; for it was a new and somewhat 
flattering experience to have any person run a long dis- 
tance over a ploughed field, burdened with a heavy gun, 
"just to see me pass." 

But it was not strange in the circumstances ; his hours 
in that grey, windy desolation must have seemed like 
days, and it was a break in the monotony, a little joyful 
excitement in getting to the road in time to see a passer- 
by more closely, and for a few moments gave him a 
sense of human companionship. I began even to feel 
a little sorry for him, alone there in his high, dreary 
world, but presently thought he was better off and better 
employed than most of his fellows poring over miserable 
books in school, and I wished we had a more rational 
system of education for the agricultural districts, one 
which would not keep the children shut up in a room 
during all the best hours of the day, when to be out of 
doors, seeing, hearing, and doing, would fit them so 
much better for the life-work before them. Squeers' 
method was a wiser one. We think less of it than of 
the delightful caricature, which makes Squeers "a joy 
for ever," as Mr. Lang has said of Pecksniff. But 
Dickens was a Londoner, and incapable of looking at 
this or any other question from any other than the Lon- 



6 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

doner's standpoint. Can you have a better system for 
the children of all England than this one which will turn 
out the most perfect draper's assistant in Oxford Street, 
or, to go higher, the most efficient Mr. Guppy in a solici- 
tor's office ? It is true that we have Nature's unconscious 
intelligence against us; that by and by, when at the age 
of fourteen the boy is finally released, she will set to 
work to undo the wrong by discharging from his mind 
its accumulations of useless knowledge as soon as he 
begins the work of life. But what a waste of time and 
energy and money! One can only hope that the slow 
intellect of the country will wake to this question some 
day, that the countryman will say to the townsman, Go 
on making your laws and systems of education for your 
own children, who will live as you do indoors ; while I 
shall devise a different one for mine, one which will give 
them hard muscles and teach them to raise the mutton 
and pork and cultivate the potatoes and cabbages on 
which we all feed. 

To return to the downs. Their very emptiness and 
desolation, which frightens the stranger from them, only 
serves to make them more fascinating to those who are 
intimate with and have learned to love them. That 
dreary aspect brings to mind the other one, when, on 
waking with the early sunlight in the room, you look 
out on a blue sky, cloudless or with white clouds. It 
may be fancy, or the effect of contrast, but it has always 
seemed to me that just as the air is purer and fresher on 
these chalk heights than on the earth below, and as the 
water is of a more crystal purity, and the sky perhaps 
bluer, so do all colours and all sounds have a purity and 
vividness and intensity beyond that of other places. I 



SALISBURY PLAIN 7 

see it in the yellows of hawkweed, rock-rose, and bird's- 
foot-trefoil, in the innumerable specks of brilliant colour 
— blue and white and rose — of milk-wort and squinancy- 
wort, and in the large flowers of the dwarf thistle, glow- 
ing purple in its green setting; and I hear it in every 
bird-sound, in the trivial songs of yellow-hammer and 
corn-bunting, and of dunnock and wren and whitethroat. 




The pleasure of walking on the downs is not, however, 
a subject which concerns me now ; it is one I have written 
about in a former work, "Nature in Downland," descrip- 
tive of the South Downs. The theme of the present 
work is the life, human and other, of the South Wiltshire 
Downs, or of Salisbury Plain. It is the part of Wilt- 
shire which has most attracted me. Most persons would 
say that the Marlborough Downs are greater, more like 
the great Sussex range as it appears from the Weald: 



8 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

but chance brought me farther south, and the character 
and life of the village people when I came to know them 
made this appear the best place to be in. 

The Plain itself is not a precisely denned area, and 
may be made to include as much or little as will suit the 
writer's purpose. If you want a continuous plain, with 
no dividing valley cutting through it, you must place it 
between the Avon and Wylye Rivers, a distance about 
fifteen miles broad and as many long, with the village of 
Tilshead in its centre; or, if you don't mind the valleys, 
you can say it extends from Downton and Tollard Royal 
south of Salisbury to the Pewsey vale in the north, and 
from the Hampshire border on the east side to Dorset 
and Somerset on the west, about twenty-five to thirty 
miles each way. My own range is over this larger Salis- 
bury Plain, which includes the River Ebble, or Ebele, 
with its numerous interesting villages, from Odstock and 
Combe Bisset, near Salisbury and "the Chalks," to pretty 
Alvediston near the Dorset line, and all those in the 
Nadder valley, and westward to White Sheet Hill above 
Mere. You can picture this high chalk country as an 
open hand, the left hand, with Salisbury in the hollow 
of the palm, placed nearest the wrist, and the five valleys 
which cut through it as the five spread fingers, from the 
Bourne (the little finger) succeeded by Avon, Wylye, 
and Nadder, to the Ebble, which comes in lower down 
as the thumb and has its junction with the main stream 
below Salisbury. 

A very large portion of this high country is now in 
a transitional state, that was once a sheep-walk and is 
now a training ground for the army. Where the sheep 
are taken away the turf loses the smooth, elastic char- 



SALISBURY PLAIN 9 

acter which makes it better to walk on than the most 
perfect lawn. The sheep fed closely, and everything 
that grew on the down — grasses, clovers, and numerous 




salisLu 



Vy 



small creeping herbs — had acquired the habit of growing 
and flowering close to the ground, every species and 
each individual plant striving, with the unconscious intel- 
ligence that is in all growing things, to hide its leaves 



10 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

and pushing sprays under the others, to escape the nib- 
bling teeth by keeping closer to the surface. There are 
grasses and some herbs, the plantain among them, which 
keep down very close but must throw up a tall stem to 
flower and seed. Look at the plantain when its flowering 
time comes ; each particular plant growing with its leaves 
so close down on the surface as to be safe from the 
busy, searching mouths, then all at once throwing up 
tall, straight stems to flower and ripen its seeds quickly. 
Watch a flock at this time, and you will see a sheep walk- 
ing about, rapidly plucking the flowering spikes, cutting 
them from the stalk with a sharp snap, taking them off 
at the rate of a dozen or so in twenty seconds. But the 
sheep cannot be all over the downs at the same time, 
and the time is short, myriads of plants throwing up their 
stems at once, so that many escape, and it has besides a 
deep perennial root so that the plant keeps its own life 
though it may be unable to sow any seeds for many 
seasons. So with other species which must send up a 
tall flower stem ; and by and by, the flowering over and 
the seeds ripened or lost, the dead, scattered stems remain 
like long hairs growing out of a close fur. The turf 
remains unchanged; but take the sheep away and it is 
like the removal of a pressure, or a danger: the plant 
recovers liberty and confidence and casts off the old habit ; 
it springs and presses up to get the better of its fellows 
— to get all the dew and rain and sunshine that it can — 
and the result is a rough surface. 

Another effect of the military occupation is the destruc- 
tion of the wild life of the Plain, but that is a matter 
I have written about in my last book, "Afoot in England," 
in a chapter on Stonehenge, and need not dwell on here. 



SALISBURY PLAIN 11 

To the lover of Salisbury Plain as it was, the sight of 
military camps, with white tents or zinc houses, and of 
bodies of men in khaki marching and drilling, and the 
sound of guns, now informs him that he is in a district 
which has lost its attraction, where nature has been 
dispossessed. 

Meanwhile, there is a corresponding* change going on 
in the human life of the district. Let anyone describe 
it as he thinks best, as an improvement or a deterioration, 
it is a great change nevertheless, which in my case and 
probably that of many others is as disagreeable to con- 
template as that which we are beginning to see in the 
down, which was once a sheep-walk and is so no longer. 
On this account I have ceased to frequent that portion 
of the Plain where the War Office is in possession of 
the land, and to keep to the southern side in my rambles, 
out of sight and hearing of the "white-tented camps" 
and mimic warfare. Here is Salisbury Plain as it has 
been these thousand years past, or ever since sheep were 
pastured here more than in any other district in England, 
and that may well date even more than ten centuries back. 

Undoubtedly changes have taken place even here, some 
very great, chiefly during the last, or from the late eigh- 
teenth century. Changes both in the land and the animal 
life, wild and domestic. Of the losses in wild bird life 
there will be something to say in another chapter; they 
relate chiefly to the extermination of the finest species, 
the big bird, especially the soaring bird, which is now- 
gone out of all this wide Wiltshire sky. As a naturalist 
I must also lament the loss of the old Wiltshire breed of 
sheep, although so long gone. Once it was the only 
breed known in Wilts, and extended over the entire 



12 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

county ; it was a big animal, the largest of the fine-wooled 
sheep in England, but for looks it certainly compared 
badly with modern downland breeds and possessed, it 
was said, all the points which the breeder, or improver, 
was against. Thus, its head was big and clumsy, with 
a round nose, its legs were long and thick, its belly with- 
out wool, and both sexes were horned. Horns, even 
in a ram, are an abomination to the modern sheep-farmer 
in Southern England. Finally, it was hard to fatten. 
On the other hand it was a sheep which had been from 
of old on the bare open downs and was modified to suit 
the conditions, the scanty feed, the bleak, bare country, 
and the long distances it had to travel to and from the 
pasture ground. It was a strong, healthy, intelligent 
animal, in appearance and character like the old original 
breed of sheep on the pampas of South America, which 
I knew as a boy, a coarse-wooled sheep with naked belly, 
tall and hardy, a greatly modified variety of the sheep 
introduced by the Spanish colonist three centuries ago. 
At all events, the old Wiltshire sheep had its merits, and 
when the South Down breed was introduced during the 
late eighteenth century the farmer viewed it with dis- 
favour; they liked their old native animal, and did not 
want to lose it. But it had to go in time, just as in later 
times the South Down had to go when the Hampshire 
Down took its place — the breed which is now universal, 
in South Wilts at all events. 

A solitary flock of the pure-bred old Wiltshire sheep 
existed in the county as late as 1840, but the breed has 
now so entirely disappeared from the country that you 
find many shepherds who have never even heard of it. 
Not many days ago I met with a curious instance of 



SALISBURY PLAIN 



13 



this ignorance of the past. I was talking to a shepherd, 
a fine intelligent fellow, keenly interested in the subjects 
of sheep and sheep-dogs, on the high down above the 
village of Broad Chalk on the Ebble, and he told me 
that his dog was of mixed breed, but on its mother's 
side came from a Welsh sheep-dog, that his father had 
always had the Welsh dog, once common in Wiltshire, 




Old Wiltshire 
horned 3heep 



^jr 



and he wondered why it had gone out as it was so good 
an animal. This led me to say something about the 
old sheep having gone out too, and as he had never 
heard of the old breed I described the animal to him. 

What I told him, he said, explained something which 
had been a puzzle to him for some years. There was 
a deep hollow in the down near the spot where we were 
standing, and at the bottom he said there was an old 
well which had been used in former times to water the 
sheep, but masses of earth had fallen down from the 
sides, and in that condition it had remained for no one 
knew how long — perhaps fifty, perhaps a hundred years. 
Some years ago it came into his master's head to have 
this old well cleaned out, and this was done with a good 



14 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

deal of labour, the sides having first been boarded over 
to make it safe for the workmen below. At the bottom 
of the well a vast store of rams' horns was discovered 
and brought out; and it was a mystery to the farmer 
and the men how so large a number of sheep's horns 
had been got together; for rams are few and do not 
die* often, and here there were hundreds of horns. He 
understood it now, for if all the sheep, ewes as well as 
rams, were horned in the old breed, a collection like this 
might easily have been made. 

The greatest change of the last hundred years is no 
doubt that which the plough has wrought in the aspect 
of the downs. There is a certain pleasure to the eye 
in the wide fields of golden corn, especially of wheat, 
in July and August ; but a ploughed down is a down made 
ugly, and it strikes one as a mistake, even from a purely 
economic point of view, that this old rich turf, the slow 
product of centuries, should be ruined for ever as sheep- 
pasture when so great an extent of uncultivated land 
exists elsewhere, especially the heavy clays of the Mid- 
lands, better suited for corn. The effect of breaking up 
the turf on the high downs is often disastrous ; the thin 
soil which was preserved by the close, hard turf is blown 
or washed away, and the soil becomes poorer year by 
year, in spite of dressing, until it is hardly worth culti- 
vating. Clover may be grown on it, but it continues 
to deteriorate; or the tenant or landlord may turn it 
into a rabbit-warren, the most fatal policy of all. How 
hideous they are — those great stretches of downland, 
enclosed in big wire fences and rabbit netting, with little 
but wiry weeds, moss, and lichen growing on them, the 
earth dug up everywhere by the disorderly little beasts! 



SALISBURY PLAIN 15 

For a while there is a profit — "it will serve me my time," 
the owner says — but the end is utter barrenness. 

One must lament, too, the destruction of the ancient 
earth-works, especially of the barrows, which is going 
on all over the downs, most rapidly where the land is 
broken up by the plough. One wonders if the ever- 
increasing curiosity of our day with regard to* the history 
of the human race in the land continues to grow, what 
our descendants of the next half of the century, to go 
no further, will say of us and our incredible* carelessness 
in the matter! So small a matter to us, but one which 
will, perhaps, be immensely important to them! It is, 
perhaps, better for our peace that we do not know; it 
would not be pleasant to have our children's and children's 
children's contemptuous expressions sounding in our pro- 
phetic ears. Perhaps we have no right to complain of 
the obliteration of these memorials of antiquity by the 
plough; the living are more than the dead, and in this 
case it may be said that we are only following the 
Artemisian example in consuming (in our daily bread) 
minute portions of the ashes of our old relations, albeit 
untearfully, with a cheerful countenance. Still one can- 
not but experience a shock on seeing the plough driven 
through an ancient, smooth turf, curiously marked with 
barrows, lynchetts, and other mysterious mounds and 
depressions, where sheep have been pastured for a thou- 
sand years, without obscuring these chance hieroglyphs 
scored by men on the surface of the hills. 

It is not, however, only on the cultivated ground that 
the destruction is going on ; the rabbit, too, is an active 
agent in demolishing the barrows and other earth-works. 
He burrows into the mound and throws out bushels of 



16 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

chalk and clay, which is soon washed down by the rains ; 
he tunnels it through and through and sometimes makes 
it his village ; then one day the farmer or keeper, who is 
not an archaeologist, comes along and puts his ferrets 
into the holes, and one of them, after drinking his fill 
of blood, falls asleep by the side of his victim, and the 
keeper sets to work with pick and shovel to dig him out 
and demolishes half the barrow to recover his vile little 
beast. 










¥' 

\ 




CHAPTER II 
Salisbury as I See It 

The Salisbury of the villager — The cathedral from the 
meadows — Walks to Wilton and Old Sarum — The 
spire and a rainbow — Charm of Old Sarum — The 
devastation — Salisbury from Old Sarum — Leland's 
description — Salisbury and the village mind — Mar- 
ket-day — The infirmary — The cathedral — The lesson 
of a child's desire — In the streets again — An Apollo 
of the downs 

To the dwellers on the Plain Salisbury itself is an ex- 
ceedingly important place — the most important in the 
world. For if they have seen a greater — London, let 
us say — it has left but a confused, a phantasmagoric 
image on the mind, an impression of endless thorough- 
fares and of innumerable people all apparently in a 

17 



18 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

desperate hurry to do something, yet doing nothing; a 
labyrinth of streets and wilderness of houses, swarming 
with beings who have no definite object and no more to 
do with realities than so many lunatics, and are uncon- 
fined because they are so numerous that all the asylums 
in the world could not contain them. But of Salisbury 
they have a very clear image: inexpressibly rich as it is 
in sights, in wonders, full of people — hundreds of people 
in the streets and market-place — they can take it all in 
and know its meaning. Every man and woman, of all 
classes, in all that concourse, is there for some definite 
purpose which they can guess and understand; and the 
busy street and market, and red houses and soaring spire, 
are all one, and part and parcel too of their own lives 
in their own distant little village by the Avon or Wylye, 
or anywhere on the Plain. And that soaring spire which, 
rising so high above the red town, first catches the eye, 
the one object which gives unity and distinction to the 
whole picture, is not more distinct in the mind than the 
entire Salisbury with its manifold interests and activities. 

There is nothing in the architecture of England more 
beautiful than that same spire. I have seen it many times, 
far and near, from all points of view, and am never in 
or near the place but I go to some spot where I look at 
and enjoy the sight; but I will speak here of the two 
best points of view. 

The nearest, which is the artist's favourite point, is 
from the meadows; there, from the waterside, you have 
the cathedral not too far away nor too near for a picture, 
whether on canvas or in the mind, standing amidst its 
great old trees, with nothing but the moist green meadows 
and the river between. One evening, during the late 



SALISBURY AS I SEE IT 19 

summer of this wettest season, when the rain was begin- 
ning to cease, I went out this way for my stroll, the 
pleasantest if not the only "walk" there is in Salisbury. 
It is true, there are two others: one to Wilton by its 
long, shady av*enue; the other to Old Sarum; but these 
are now motor r roads, and until the loathed hooting and 
dusting engines are thrust away into roads of their own 
there is little pleasure in them for the man on foot. The 
rain ceased, but the sky was still stormy, with a great 
blackness beyond the cathedral and still other black clouds 
coming up from the west behind me. Then the sun, 
near its setting, broke out, sending a flame of orange 
colour through the dark masses around it, and at the 
same time flinging a magnificent rainbow on that blade 
cloud against which the immense spire stood wet with 
rain and flushed with light, so that it looked like a spire 
built of a stone impregnated with silver. Never had 
Nature so glorified man's work! It was indeed a mar- 
vellous thing to see, an effect so rare that in all the years 
I had known Salisbury, and the many times I had taken 
that stroll in all weathers, it was my first experience of 
such a thing. How lucky, then, was Constable to have 
seen it, when he set himself to paint his famous picture ! 
And how brave he was and even wise to have attempted 
such a subject, one which, I am informed by artists with 
the brush, only a madman would undertake, however 
great a genius he might be. It was impossible, we know, 
even to a Constable, but we admire his failure neverthe- 
less, even as we admire Turner's many failures; but 
when we go back to Nature we are only too glad to 
forget all about the picture. 

The view from the meadows will not, in the future, 



20 [A. SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

I fear, seem so interesting to me; I shall miss the rain- 
bow, and shall never see again except in that treasured 
image the great spire as Constable saw and tried to 
paint it. In like manner, though for a different reason, 
my future visits to Old Sarum will no longer give me 
the same pleasure experienced on former occasions. 

Old Sarum stands over the Avon, a mile and a half 
from Salisbury; a round chalk hill about 300 feet high, 
in its- round shape and isolation resembling a stupendous 
tumulus in which the giants of antiquity were buried, 
its steeply sloping, green sides ringed about with vast, 
concentric earth-works and ditches, the work of the "old 
people," as they say on the Plain, when referring to the 
ancient Britons, but how ancient, whether invading Celts 
or Aborigines — the true Britons, who possessed the land 
from neolithic times — even the anthropologists, the wise 
men of to-day, are unable to tell us. Later, it was a 
Roman station, one of the most important, and in after 
ages a great Norman castle and cathedral city, until early 
in the thirteenth century, when the old church was pulled 
down and a new and better one to last for ever was built 
in the green plain by many running waters. Church 
and people gone, the castle fell into ruin, though some 
believe it existed down to the fifteenth century; but from 
that time onwards the site has been a place of historical 
memories and a wilderness. Nature had made it a sweet 
and beautiful spot; the earth over the old buried ruins 
was covered with an elastic turf, jewelled with the bright 
little flowers of the chalk, the ramparts and ditches being 
all overgrown with a dense thicket of thorn, holly, elder, 
bramble, and ash, tangled up with ivy, briony, and trav- 
eller's-joy. Once only during the last five or six centuries 



SALISBURY AS I SEE IT 21 

some slight excavations were made when, in 1834, as 
the result of an excessively dry summer, the lines of the 
cathedral foundations were discernible on the surface. 
But it will no longer be the place it was, the Society of 
Antiquaries having received permission from the Dean 
and Chapter of Salisbury to work their sweet will on 
the site. That ancient, beautiful carcass, which had long 
made their mouths water, on which they have now fallen 
like a pack of hungry hyenas to tear off the old hide of 
green turf and burrow down to open to the light or drag 
out the deep, stony framework. The beautiful surround- 
ing thickets, too, must go, they tell me, since you cannot 
turn the hill inside out without destroying the trees and 
bushes that crown it. What person who has known it 
and has often sought that spot for the sake of its ancient 
associations, and of the sweet solace they have found in 
the solitude, or for the noble view of the sacred city from 
its summit, will not deplore this fatal amiability of the 
authorities, this weak desire to please every one and 
inability to say no to such a proposal ! 

But let me now return to the object which brings me 
to this spot; it was not to lament the loss of the beautiful, 
which cannot be preserved in our age — even this best 
one of all which Salisbury possessed cannot be preserved 
— but to look at Salisbury from this point of view. It 
is not as from "the meadows" a view of the cathedral 
only, but of the whole town, amidst its circle of vast 
green downs. It has a beautiful aspect from that point: 
a red-brick and red-tiled town, set low on that circum- 
scribed space, whose soft, brilliant green is in lovely 
contrast with the paler hue of the downs beyond, the 
perennial moist green of its water-meadows. For many 



22 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

swift, clear currents flow around and through Salisbury, 
and doubtless in former days there were many more 
channels in the town itself. Leland's description is worth 
quoting: "There be many fair streates in the Cite Sares- 
byri, and especially the High Streate and Castle Streate 
. . . . Al the Streates in a maner, in New Saresbyri, 
hath little streamlettes and arms derivyd out of Avon 
than runneth through them. The site of the very town 
of Saresbyri and much ground thereabout is playne and 
low, and as a pan or receyvor of most part of the waters 
of Wiltshire." 

On this scene, this red town with the great spire, set 
down among water-meadows, encircled by paler green 
chalk hills, I look from the top of the inner and highest 
rampart or earth-work; or going a little distance down 
sit at ease on the turf to gaze at it by the hour. Nor 
could a sweeter resting-place be found, especially at the 
time of ripe elder-berries, when the thickets are purple 
with their clusters and the starlings come in flocks to 
feed on them, and feeding keep up a perpetual, low 
musical jangle about me. 

It is not, however, of "New Saresbyri" as seen by the 
tourist, with a mind full of history, archaeology, and the 
aesthetic delight in cathedrals, that I desire to write, but 
of Salisbury as it appears to the dweller on the Plain. 
For Salisbury is the capital of the Plain, the head and 
heart of all those villages, too many to count, scattered 
far and wide over the surrounding country. It is the 
villager's own peculiar city, and even as the spot it stands 
upon is the "pan or receyvor, of most part of the waters 
of Wiltshire," so is it the receyvor of all he accomplishes 
in his laborious life, and thitherward flow all his thoughts 



SALISBURY AS I SEE IT 23 

and ambitions. Perhaps it is not so difficult for me as 
it would be for most persons who are not natives to 
identify myself with him and see it as he sees it. That 
greater place we have been in, that mighty, monstrous 
London, is ever present to the mind and is like a mist 
before the sight when we look at other places; but for 
me there is no such mist, no image so immense and per- 
sistent as to cover and obscure all others, and no such 
mental habit as that of regarding people as a mere crowd, 
a mass, a monstrous organism, in and on which each 
individual is but a cell, a scale. This feeling troubles 
and confuses my mind when I am in London, where we 
live "too thick"; but quitting it I am absolutely free; it 
has not entered my soul and coloured me with its colour 
or shut me out from those who have never known it, 
even of the simplest dwellers on the soil who, to our 
sophisticated minds, may seem like beings of another 
species. This is my happiness — to feel, in all places, that 
I am one with them. To say, for instance, that I am 
going to Salisbury to-morrow, and catch the gleam in 
the children's eye and watch them, furtively watching 
me, whisper to one another that there will be something 
for them, too, on the morrow. To set out betimes and 
overtake the early carriers' carts on the road, each with 
its little cargo of packages and women with baskets and 
an old man or two, to recognize acquaintances among 
those who sit in front, and as I go on overtaking and 
passing carriers and the half-gipsy, little "general dealer" 
in his dirty, ramshackle, little cart drawn by a rough, 
fast-trotting pony, all of us intent on business and 
pleasure, bound for Salisbury — the great market and 
emporium and place of all delights for all the great Plain. 



24 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



I remember that on my very last expedition, when I had 
come twelve miles in the rain and was standing at a street 
corner, wet to the skin, waiting for my carrier, a man 
in a hurry said to me, "I say, just keep an eye on my 
cart for a minute or two while I run round to see some- 
body. I've got some fowls in it, and if you see anyone 
come poking round just ask them what they want — you 
can't trust every one. I'll be back in a minute." And 




CARRIERS CAKTS 
SALISBURY MARKET 



he was gone, and I was very pleased to watch his cart 
and fowls till he came back. 

Business is business and must be attended to, in fair 
or foul weather, but for business with pleasure we prefer 
it fine on market-day. The one great and chief pleasure, 
in which all participate, is just to be there, to be in the 
crowd — a joyful occasion which gives a festive look to 
every face. The mere sight of it exhilarates like wine. 
The numbers — the people and the animals! The car- 
riers' carts drawn up in rows on rows — carriers from a 



SALISBURY AS I SEE IT 25 

hundred little villages on the Bourne, the Avon, the 
Wylye, the Nadder, the Ebble, and from all over the 
Plain, each bringing its little contingent. Hundreds and 
hundreds more coming by train; you see them pouring 
down Fisherton Street in a continuous procession, all 
hurrying market-wards. And what a lively scene the 
market presents now, full of cattle and sheep and pigs 
and crowds of people standing round the shouting auc- 
tioneers! And horses, too, the beribboned hacks, and 
ponderous draught horses with manes and tails deco- 
rated with golden straw, thundering over the stone 
pavement as they are trotted up and down! And what 
a profusion of fruit and vegetables, fish and meat, and 
all kinds of provisions on the stalls, where women with 
baskets on their arms are jostling and bargaining! The 
Corn Exchange is like a huge beehive, humming with 
the noise of talk, full of brown-faced farmers in their 
riding and driving clothes and leggings, standing in knots 
or thrusting their hands into sacks of oats and barley. 
You would think that all the farmers from all the Plain 
were congregated there. There is a joyful contagion 
in it all. Even the depressed young lover, the forlornest 
of beings, repairs his wasted spirits and takes heart again. 
Why, if I've seen a girl with a pretty face to-day I've seen 
a hundred — and more. And she thinks they be so few 
she can treat me like that and barely give me a pleasant 
word in a month! Let her come to Salisbury and see 
how many there be ! 

And so with every one in that vast assemblage — vast 
to the dweller in the Plain. Each one is present as it 
were in two places, since each has in his or her heart the 
constant image of home — the little, peaceful village in 



26 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

the remote valley; of father and mother and neighbours 
and children, in school just now, or at play, or home to 
dinner — home cares and concerns and the business in 
Salisbury. The selling and buying ; friends and relations 
to visit or to meet in the market-place, and — how often ! 
— the sick one to be seen at the Infirmary. This home 
of the injured and ailing, which is in the mind of so 
many of the people gathered together, is indeed the cord 
that draws and binds the city and the village closest 
together and makes the two like one. 

That great, comely building of warm, red brick in 
Fisherton Street, set well back so that you can see it as 
a whole, behind its cedar and beech-trees — how familiar 
it is to the villagers! In numberless humble homes, in 
hundreds of villages of the Plain, and all over the sur- 
rounding country, the "Infirmary" is a name of the 
deepest meaning, and a place of many sad and tender 
and beautiful associations. I heard it spoken of in a 
manner which surprised me at first, for I know some 
of the London poor and am accustomed to their attitude 
towards the metropolitan hospitals. The Londoner uses 
them very freely; they have come to be as necessary to 
him as the grocer's shop and the public-house, but for 
all the benefits he receives from them he has no faintest 
sense of gratitude, and it is my experience that if you 
speak to him of this he is roused to anger and demands 
"What are they for?" So far is he from having any 
thankful thoughts for all that has been given him for 
nothing and done for him and for his, if he has anything 
to say at all on the matter it is to find fault with the 
hospitals and cast blame on them for not having healed 
him more quickly or thoroughly. 



SALISBURY AS I SEE IT 27 

This country town hospital and infirmary is differently 
regarded by the villagers of the Plain. It is curious to 
find how many among them are personally acquainted 
with it; perhaps it is not easy for anyone, even in this 
most healthy district, to get through life without sickness, 
and all are liable to accidents. The injured or afflicted 
youth, taken straight from his rough, hard life and poor 
cottage, wonders at the place he finds himself in — the 
wide, clean, airy room and white, easy bed, the care 
and skill of the doctors, the tender nursing by women, 
and comforts and luxuries, all without payment, but 
given as it seems to him out of pure divine love and 
compassion — all this comes to him as something strange, 
almost incredible. He suffers much perhaps, but can 
bear pain stoically and forget it when it is past, but the 
loving kindness he has experienced is remembered. 

That is one of the very great things Salisbury has 
for the villagers, and there are many more which may 
not be spoken of, since we do not want to lose sight of 
the wood on account of the trees; only one must be men- 
tioned for a special reason, and that is the cathedral. The 
villager is extremely familiar with it as he sees it from 
the market and the street and from a distance, from all 
the roads which lead him to Salisbury. Seeing it he 
sees everything beneath it — all the familiar places and 
objects, all the streets — High and Castle and Crane 
Streets, and many others, including Endless Street, which 
reminds one of Sydney Smith's last flicker of fun before 
that candle went out; and the "White Hart" and the 
"Angel" and "Old George," and the humbler "Goat" and 
"Green Man" and "Shoulder of Mutton," with many 
besides; and the great, red building with its cedar-tree, 



28 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



and the knot of men and) boys standing on the bridge 
gazing down on the trout in the swift river below; and 
the market-place and its busy crowds — all the familiar 
sights and scenes that come under the spire like a flock 
of sheep on a burning day in summer, grouped about a 
great tree growing in the pasture-land. But he is not 
familiar with the interior of the great fane; it fails to 




3T4U.3 in 
MARKET 



draw him, doubtless because he has no time in his busy, 
practical life for the cultivation of the aesthetic faculties. 
There is a crust over that part of his mind ; but it need 
not always and ever be so; the crust is not on the mind 
of the child. 

Before a stall in the market-place a child is standing 
with her mother — a commonplace-looking, little girl of 
about twelve, blue-eyed, light-haired, with thin arms 
and legs, dressed, poorly enough, for her holiday. The 
mother, stoutish, in her best but much-worn black gown 



SALISBURY AS I SEE IT 29 

and a brown straw, out-of-shape hat, decorated with 
bits of ribbon and a few soiled and frayed, artificial 
flowers. Probably she is the wife of a labourer who 
works hard to keep himself and family on fourteen shil- 
lings a week ; and she, too, shows, in her hard hands and 
sunburnt face, with little wrinkles appearing, that she 
is a hard worker; but she is very jolly, for she is in 
Salisbury on market-day, in fine weather, with several 
shillings in her purse — a shilling for the fares, and per- 
haps eightpence for refreshments, and the rest to be 
expended in necessaries for the house. And now to 
increase the pleasure of the day she has unexpectedly 
run against a friend ! There they stand, the two friends, 
basket on arm, right in the midst of the jostling crowd, 
talking in their loud, tinny voices at a tremendous rate; 
while the girl, with a half-eager, half-listless expression, 
stands by with her hand on her mother's dress, and every 
time there is a second's pause in the eager talk she gives 
a little tug at the gown and ejaculates "Mother!" The 
woman impatiently shakes off the hand and says sharply, 
"What now, Marty! Can't 'ee let me say just a word 
without bothering!" and on the talk runs again; then 
another tug and "Mother!" and then, "You promised, 
Mother," and by and by, "Mother, you said you'd take 
me to the cathedral next time." 

Having heard so much I wanted to hear more, and- 
addressing the woman I asked her why her child wanted 
to go. She answered me with a good-humoured laugh. 
" Tis all because she heard 'em talking about it last win- 
ter, and she'd never been, and I says to her, 'Never you 
mind, Marty, I'll take you there the next time I go to 
Salisbury.' " 



30 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

"And she's never forgot it," said the other woman. 

"Not she — Marty ain't one to forget." 

"And you been four times, Mother," put in the girl. 

"Have I now ! Well, 'tis too late now — half-past two 
and we must be 't 'Goat' at four." 

"Oh, Mother, you promised!" 

"Well, then, come along, you worriting child, and let's 
have it over or you'll give me no peace ;" and away they 
went. And I would have followed to know the result if 
it had been in my power to look into that young brain 
and see the thoughts and feelings there as the crystal- 
gazer sees things in a crystal. In a vague way, with 
some very early memories to help me, I can imagine it 
— the shock of pleased wonder at the sight of that im- 
mense interior, that far-extending nave with pillars that 
stand like the tall trunks of pines and beeches, and at 
the end the light screen which allows the eye to travel 
on through the rich choir, to see, with fresh wonder and 
delight, high up and far off, that glory of coloured glass 
as of a window half-open to an unimaginable place be- 
yond — a heavenly cathedral to which all this is but a 
dim porch or passage ! 

We do not properly appreciate the educational value 
of such early experiences; and I use that dismal word 
not because it is perfectly right or for want of a better 
one, but because it is in everybody's mouth and under- 
stood by all. For all I know to the contrary, village 
schools may be bundled in and out of the cathedral from 
time to time, but that is not the right way, seeing that the 
child's mind is not the crowd-of -children's mind. But 
I can imagine that when we have a wiser, better system of 
education in the villages, in which books will not be 



SALISBURY AS I SEE IT 



31 



everything, and to be shut up six or seven hours every- 
day to prevent the children from learning the things that 
matter most — I can imagine at such a time that the 
schoolmaster or mistress will say to the village woman, 
"I hear you are going to Salisbury to-morrow, or next 
Tuesday, and I want you to take Janie or little Dan or 




Tlfi; MARKET HOCSE 
SALISBURY 



Peter, and leave him for an hour to play about on the 
cathedral green and watch the daws flying round the spire, 
and take a peep inside while you are doing your 
marketing.'* 

Back from the cathedral once more, from the infirmary, 
and from shops and refreshment-houses, out in the sun 
among the busy people, let us delay a little longer for 
the sake of our last scene. 

It was past noon on a hot, brilliant day in August, 
and that splendid weather had brought in more people 



32 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

than I had ever before seen congregated in Salisbury, 
and never had the people seemed so talkative and merry 
and full of life as on that day. I was standing at a busy 
spot by a row of carriers' carts drawn up at the side of 
the pavement, just where there are three public-houses 
close together, when I caught sight of a young man of 
about twenty-two or twenty-three, a shepherd in a grey 
suit and thick, iron-shod, old boots and brown leggings, 
with a soft felt hat thrust jauntily on the back of his 
head, coming along towards me with that half -slouching, 
half-swinging gait peculiar to the men of the downs, 
especially when they are in the town on pleasure bent. 
Decidedly he was there on pleasure and had been indulg- 
ing in a glass or two of beer (perhaps three) and was 
very happy, trolling out a song in a pleasant, musical 
voice as he swung along, taking no notice of the people 
stopping and turning round to stare after him, or of 
those of his own party who were following and trying 
to keep up with him, calling to him all the time to stop, 
to wait, to go slow, and give them a chance. There were 
seven following him: a stout, middle-aged woman, then 
a grey-haired, old woman and two girls, and last a young- 
ish, married woman with a small boy by the hand; and 
the stout woman, with a red, laughing face, cried out, 
"Oh, Dave, do stop, can't 'ee! Where be going so fast, 
man — don't 'ee see we can't keep up with 'ee?" But 
he would not stop nor listen. It was his day out, his 
great day in Salisbury, a very rare occasion, and he was 
very happy. Then she would turn back to the others 
and cry, " 'Tisn't no use, he won't bide for us — did 'ee 
ever see such a boy!" and laughing and perspiring she 
would start on after him again. 



SALISBURY AS I SEE IT 33 

Now this incident would have been too trivial to relate 
had it not been for the appearance of the man himself — 
his powerful and perfect physique and marvellously 
handsome face — such a face as the old Greek sculptors 
have left to the world to be universally regarded and 
admired for all time as the most perfect. I do not think 
that this was my feeling only ; I imagine that the others 
in that street who were standing still and staring after 
him had something of the same sense of surprise and 
admiration he excited in me. Just then it happened that 
there was a great commotion outside one of the public- 
houses, where a considerable party of gipsies in their 
little carts had drawn up, and were all engaged in a 
violent, confused altercation. Probably they, or one of 
them, had just disposed of a couple of stolen ducks, or 
a sheepskin, or a few rabbits, and they were quarrelling 
over the division of the spoil. At all events they were 
violently excited, scowling at each other and one or two 
in a dancing rage, and had collected a crowd of amused 
lookers-on; but when the young man came singing by 
they all turned to stare at him. 

As he came on I placed myself directly in his path and 
stared straight into his eyes — grey eyes and very beau- 
tiful; but he refused to see me; he stared through me 
like an animal when you try to catch its eyes, and went 
by still trolling out his song, with all the others streaming 
after him. 




CHAPTER III 
Winterbourne Bishop 

A favourite village — Isolated situation — Appearance of 
the village — Hedge-fruit — The winterbourne — Hu- 
man interest — The home feeling — Man in harmony 
with nature — Human bones thrown out by a rabbit 
— A spot unspoiled and unchanged 

Of the few widely separated villages, hidden away among 
the lonely downs in the large, blank spaces between the 
rivers, the one I love best is Winterbourne Bishop. Yet 
of the entire number — I know them all intimately — I 
daresay it would be pronounced by most persons the least 
attractive. It has less shade from trees in summer and 
is more exposed in winter to the bleak winds of this high 
country, from whichever quarter they may blow. Placed 
high itself on a wide, unwooded valley or depression, with 
the low, sloping downs at some distance away, the village 
is about as cold a place to pass a winter in as one could 

34 



WINTERBOURNE BISHOP 35 

find in this district. And, it may be added, the most 
inconvenient to live in at any time, the nearest town, 
or the easiest to get to, being Salisbury, twelve miles dis- 
tant by a hilly road. The only means of getting to that 
great centre of life which the inhabitants possess is by 
the carrier's cart, which makes the weary four-hours' 
journey once a week, on market-day. Naturally, not 
many of them see that place of delights oftener than 
once a year, and some but once in five or more years. 

Then, as to the village itself, when you have got down 
into its one long, rather winding street, or road. This 
has a green bank, five or six feet high, on either side, 
on which stand the cottages, mostly facing the road. 
Real houses there are- none — buildings worthy of being 
called houses in these great days — unless the three small 
farm-houses are considered better than cottages, and the 
rather mean-looking rectory — the rector, poor man, is 
very poor. Just in the middle part, where the church 
stands in its green churchyard, the shadiest spot in the 
village, a few of the cottages are close together, almost 
touching, then farther apart, twenty yards or so, then 
farther still, forty or fifty yards. They are small, old 
cottages; a few have seventeenth-century dates cut on 
stone tablets on their fronts, but the undated ones look 
equally old ; some thatched, others tiled, but none par- 
ticularly attractive. -Certainly they are without the added 
charm of a green drapery — creeper or ivy rose, clematis, 
and honeysuckle; and they are also mostly without the 
cottage-garden flowers, unprofitably gay like the blossom- 
ing furze, but dear to the soul ; the flowers we find in so 
many of the villages along the rivers, especially in those 
of the Wylye valley to be described in a later chapter. 



36 r A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

The trees, I have said, are few, though the churchyard 
is shady, where you can- refresh yourself beneath its 
ancient beeches and its one wide-branching yew, or sit 
on a tomb in the sun when you wish for warmth and 
brightness. The trees growing by or near the street are 
mostly ash or beech, with a pine or two, old but not 
large; and there are small or dwarf yew-, holly-, and 
thorn-trees. Very little fruit is grown; two or three to 
half a dozen apple- and damson-trees are called an or- 
chard, and one is sorry for the children. But in late 
summer and autumn they get their fruit from the hedges. 
These run up towards the downs on either side of the 
village, at right angles with its street ; long, unkept hedges, 
beautiful with scarlet haws and traveller's-joy, rich in 
bramble and elder berries and purple sloes and nuts — 
a thousand times more nuts than. the little* dormice require 
for their own modest wants. 

Finally, to go back to its disadvantages, the village is 
waterless; at all events in summer, when water is most 
wanted. Water is such a blessing and joy in a village — 
a joy for ever when it flows throughout the year, as at 
Nether Stowey and Winsford and Bourton-on-the- Water, 
to mention but three of all those happy villages in the 
land which are known to most of us! What man on 
coming to such places and watching the rushing, spark- 
ling, foaming torrent by day and listening to its splashing, 
gurgling sounds by night, does not resolve that he will 
live in no village that has not a perennial stream in it! 
This unblessed, high and dry village has nothing but 
the winterbourne which gives it its name; a sort of sur- 
name common to a score or two of villages in Wiltshire, 
Dorset, Somerset, and Hants. Here the bed of the stream 



WINTERBOURNE BISHOP 37 

lies by the bank on one side of the village street, and 
when the autumn and early winter rains have fallen 
abundantly, the hidden reservoirs within the chalk hills 
are filled to overflowing ; then the water finds its way out 
and fills the dry old channel and sometimes turns the 
whole street into a rushing river, to the immense joy of 
the village children. They are like ducks, hatched and 
reared at some upland farm where there was not even 
a muddy pool to dibble in. For a season (the wet one) 
the village women have water at their own doors and 
can go out and dip pails in it as often as they want. 
When spring comes it is still flowing merrily, trying to 
make you believe that it is going to flow for ever ; beau- 
tiful, green water-loving plants and grasses spring up 
and flourish along the roadside, and you may see comf rey 
and water forget-me-not in flower. Pools, too, have 
been formed in some deep, hollow places ; they are fringed 
with tall grasses, whitened over with bloom of water- 
crowfoot, and poa grass grows up from the bottom to 
spread its green tresses over the surface. Better still, 
by and by a couple of stray moorhens make their appear- 
ance in the pool — strange birds, coloured glossy olive- 
brown, slashed with white, with splendid scarlet and 
yellow beaks! If by some strange chance a shining blue 
kingfisher were to appear it could not create a greater 
excitement. So much attention do they receive that 
the poor strangers have no peace of their lives. It is 
a happy time for the children, and a good time for the 
busy housewife, who has all the water she wants for 
cooking and washing and cleaning — she may now dash 
as many pailfuls over her brick floors as she likes. Then 
the clear, swift current begins to diminish, and scarcely 



38 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

have you had time to notice the change than it is alto- 
gether gone ! The women must go back to the well and 
let the bucket down, and laboriously turn and turn the 
handle of the windlass till it mounts to the top again. 
The pretty moist, green herbage, the graceful grasses, 
quickly wither away; dust and straws and rubbish from 
the road lie in the dry channel, and by and by it is filled 
with a summer growth of dock and loveless nettles which 
no child may touch with impunity. 

No, I cannot think that any person for whom it had 
no association, no secret interest, would, after looking 
at this village with its dried-up winterbourne, care to 
make his home in it. And no person, I imagine, wants 
to see it; for it has no special attraction and is away 
from any road, at a distance from everywhere. I knew 
a great many villages in Salisbury Plain, and was always 
adding to their number, but there was no intention of 
visiting this one. Perhaps there is not a village on the 
Plain, or anywhere in Wiltshire for that matter, which 
sees fewer strangers. Then I fell in with the old shep- 
herd whose life will be related in the succeeding chapter, 
and who, away from his native place, had no story about 
his past life and the lives of those he had known — no 
thought in his mind, I might almost say, which was not 
connected with the village of Winterbourne Bishop. 
And many of his anecdotes and reflections proved so 
interesting that I fell into the habit of putting them down 
in my notebook; until in the end the place itself, where 
he had followed his "homely trade" so long, seeing and 
feeling so much, drew me to it. I knew there was 
"nothing to see" in it, that it was without the usual 
attractions; that there was, in fact, nothing but the 



WINTERBOURNE BISHOP 



39 



human interest, but that was enough. So I came to it 
to satisfy an idle curiosity — just to see how it would 
accord with the mental picture produced by his descrip- 
tion of it. I came, I may say, prepared to like the place 
for the sole but sufficient reason that it had been his 
home. Had it not been for this feeling he had produced 
in me I should not, I imagine, have cared to stay long 
in it. As it was, I did stay, then came again and found 



L . ttttant ""'*■ ■■—■■,■ 



*ST.« 




TJI-3MEAD 



that it was growing on me. I wondered why; for the 
mere interest in the old shepherd's life memories did not 
seem enough to account for this deepening attachment. 
It began to seem to me that I liked it more and more 
because of its very barrenness — the entire absence of 
all the features which make a place attractive, noble 
scenery, woods, and waters; deer parks and old houses, 
Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, stately and beautiful, full 
of art treasures; ancient monuments and historical asso- 
ciations. There were none of these things; there was 



40 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

nothing here but that wide, vacant expanse, very thinly 
populated with humble, rural folk — farmers, shepherds, 
labourers — living in very humble houses. England is 
so full of riches in ancient monuments and grand and 
interesting and lovely buildings and objects and scenes, 
that it is perhaps too rich. For we may get into the habit 
of looking for such things, expecting them at every turn, 
every mile of the way. 

I found it a relief, at Winterbourne Bishop, to be in 
a country which had nothing to draw a man out of a 
town. A wide, empty land, with nothing on it to look 
at but a furze-bush; or when I had gained the summit 
of the down, and to get a little higher still stood on the 
top of one of its many barrows, a sight of the distant 
village, its low, grey or reddish-brown cottages half 
hidden among its few trees, the square, stone tower of 
its little church looking at a distance no taller than a 
milestone. That emptiness seemed good for both mind 
and body: I could spend long hours idly sauntering or 
sitting or lying on the turf, thinking of nothing, or only 
of one thing — that it was a relief to have no thought 
about anything. 

But no, something was secretly saying to me all the 
time, that it was more than what I have said which con- 
tinued to draw me to this vacant place — more than the 
mere relief experienced on coming back to nature and 
solitude, and the freedom of a wide earth and sky. I 
was not fully conscious of what the something more was 
until after repeated visits. On each occasion it was a 
pleasure to leave Salisbury behind and set out on that 
long, hilly road, and the feeling would keep with me all 
the journey, even in bad weather, sultry or cold, or with 



WINTERBOURNE BISHOP 41 

the wind hard against me, blowing the white chalk dust 
into my eyes. From the time I left the turnpike to go 
the last two and a half to three miles by the side-road 
I would gaze eagerly ahead for a sight of my destina- 
tion long before it could possibly be seen ; until, on gain- 
ing the summit of a low, intervening down, the wished 
scene would be disclosed — the vale-like, wide depression, 
with its line of trees, blue-green in the distance, flecks 
of red and grey colour of the houses among them — and 
at that sight there would come a sense of elation, like 
that of coming home. 

This in fact was the secret! This empty place was, 
in its aspect, despite the difference in configuration be- 
tween down and undulating plain, more like the home of 
my early years than any other place known to me in the 
country. I can note many differences, but they do not 
deprive me of this home feeling; it is the likenesses that 
hold me, the spirit of the place, one which Is not a desert 
with the desert's melancholy or sense of desolation, but 
inhabited, although thinly and by humble-minded men 
whose work and dwellings are unobtrusive. The final 
effect of this wide, green space with signs of human life 
and labour on it, and sight of animals — sheep and cattle 
— at various distances, is that we are not aliens here, 
intruders or invaders on the earth, living in it but apart, 
perhaps hating and spoiling it, but with the other animals 
are children of Nature, like them living and seeking our 
subsistence under her sky, familiar with her sun and 
wind and rain. 

If some ostentatious person had come to this strangely 
quiet spot and raised a staring, big house, the sight of 
it in the landscape would have made it impossible to have 



42 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

such a feeling as I have described — this sense of man's 
harmony and oneness with nature. From how much of 
England has this expression which nature has for the 
spirit, which is so much more to us than beauty of scenery, 
been blotted out! This quiet spot in Wiltshire has been 
inhabited from of old, how far back in time the barrows 
raised by an ancient, barbarous people are there to tell us, 
and to show us how long it is possible for the race of 
men, in all stages of culture, to exist on the earth without 
spoiling it. 

One afternoon when walking on Bishop Down I noticed 
at a distance of a hundred yards or more that a rabbit 
had started making a burrow in a new place and had 
thrown out a vast quantity of earth. Going to the spot 
to see what kind of chalk or soil he was digging so 
deeply in, I found that he had thrown out a human thigh- 
bone and a rib or two. They were of a reddish-white 
colour and had been embedded in a hard mixture of 
chalk and red earth. The following day I went again, 
and there were more bones, and every day after that the 
number increased until it seemed to me that he had 
brought out the entire skeleton, minus the skull, which I 
had been curious to see. Then the bones disappeared. 
The man who looked after the game had seen them, and 
recognizing that they were human remains had judiciously 
taken them away to destroy or stow them away in some 
safe place. For if the village constable had discovered 
them, or heard of their presence, he would perhaps have 
made a fuss and even thought it necessary to communi- 
cate with the coroner of the district. Such things occa- 
sionally happen, even in Wiltshire where the chalk hills 
are full of the bones of dead men, and a solemn Crowner's 



WINTERBOURNE BISHOP 43 

quest is held on the remains of a Saxon or Dane or an 
ancient Briton. When some important person — a Sir 
Richard Colt Hoare, for example, who dug up 379 bar- 
rows in Wiltshire, or a General Pitt Rivers — throws out 
human remains nobody minds, but if an unauthorized 
rabbit kicks out a lot of bones the matter should be 
inquired into. 

But the man whose bones had been thus thrown out 
into the sunlight after lying so long at that spot, which 
commanded a view of the distant, little village looking 
so small in that immense, green space — who and what 
was he and how long ago did he live on the earth — at 
Winterbourne Bishop, let us say? There were two bar- 
rows in that part of the down, but quite a stone's-throw 
away from the spot where the rabbit was working, so 
that he may not have been one of the people of that 
period. Still, it is probable that he was buried a very 
long time ago, centuries back, perhaps a thousand years, 
perhaps longer, and by chance there was a slope there 
which prevented the water from percolating, and the 
soil in which he had been deposited, under that close-knit 
turf which looked as if it had never been disturbed, was 
one in which bones might keep uncrumbled for ever. 

The thought that occurred to me at the time was that 
if the man himself had come back to life after so long 
a period, to stand once more on that down surveying the 
scene, he would have noticed little change in it, certainly 
nothing of a startling description. The village itself, 
looking so small at that distance, in the centre of the 
vast depression, would probably not be strange to him. 
It was doubtless there as far back as history goes and 
probably still farther back in time. For at that point, 



44 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

just where the winterbourne gushes out from the low 
hills, is the spot man would naturally select to make his 
home. And he would see no mansion or big building, 
no puff of white steam and sight of a long, black train 
creeping over the earth, nor any other strange thing. It 
would appear to him even as he knew it before he fell 
asleep — the same familiar scene, with furze and bramble 
and bracken on the slope, the wide expanse with sheep 
and cattle grazing in the distance, and the dark green 
of trees in the hollows, and fold on fold of the low 
down beyond, stretching away to the dim, farthest 
horizon. 




iPMlNSTEft OWTMr BOUB.NE 



CHAPTER IV 
A Shepherd of the Downs 

Caleb Bawcombe — An old shepherd's love of his home — 
Fifty years' shepherding — Bawcombe's singular ap- 
pearance — A tale of a titlark — Caleb Bawcombe's 
father — Father and son — A grateful sportsman and 
Isaac Bawcombe's pension — Death following death 
in old married couples — In a village churchyard — 
A farm-labourer's gravestone and his story 

It is now several years since I first met Caleb Bawcombe, 
a shepherd of the South Wiltshire Downs, but already 
old and infirm and past work. I met him at a distance 
from his native village, and it was only after I had known 
him a long time and had spent many afternoons and 
evenings in his company, listening to his anecdotes of 
his shepherding days, that I went to see his own old home 
for myself — the village of Winterbourne Bishop already 
described, to find it a place after my own heart. But 
as I have said, if I had never known Caleb and heard so 

45 



46 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

much from him about his own life and the lives of many 
of his fellow-villagers, I should probably never have 
seen this village. 

One of his memories was of an old shepherd named 
John, whose acquaintance he made when a very young 
man — John being at that time seventy-eight years old 
— on the Winterbourne Bishop farm, where he had served 
for an unbroken period of close on sixty years. Though 
so aged he was still head shepherd, and he continued to 
hold that place seven years longer — until his master, 
who had taken over old John with the place, finally gave 
up the farm and farming at the same time. He, too, 
was getting past work and wished to spend his declining 
years in his native village in an adjoining parish, where 
he owned some house and cottage property. And now 
what was to become of the old shepherd, since the new 
tenant had brought his own men with him? — and he, 
moreover, considered that John, at eighty-five, was too 
old to tend a flock on the hills, even of tegs. His old 
master, anxious to help him, tried to get him some em- 
ployment in the village where he wished to stay; and 
failing in this, he at last offered him a cottage rent free 
in the village where he was going to live himself, and, 
in addition, twelve shillings a week for the rest of his 
life. It was in those days an exceedingly generous offer, 
but John refused it. "Master," he said, "I be going to 
stay in my own native village, and if I can't make a 
living the parish '11 have to keep I ; but keep or not keep, 
here I be and here I be going to stay, where I were 
borned." 

From this position the stubborn old man refused to 
be moved, and there at Winterbourne Bishop his master 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS 47 

had to leave him, although not without having first made 
him a sufficient provision. 

The way in which my old friend, Caleb Bawcombe, 
told the story plainly revealed his own feeling in the 
matter. He understood and had the keenest sympathy 
with old John, dead now over half a century ; or rather, 
let us say, resting very peacefully in that green spot under 
the old grey tower of Winterbourne Bishop church where 
as a small boy he had played among the old gravestones 
as far back in time as the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. But old John had long survived wife and children, 
and having no one but himself to think of was at liberty 
to end his days where he pleased. Not so with Caleb, 
for, although his undying passion for home and his love 
of the shepherd's calling was as great as John's, he was 
not so free, and he was compelled at last to leave his 
native downs, which he may never see again, to settle 
for the remainder of his days in another part of the 
country. 

Early in life he "caught a chill" through long exposure 
to wet and cold in winter; this brought on rheumatic 
fever and a malady of the thigh, which finally affected 
the whole limb and made him lame for life. Thus handi- 
capped he had continued as shepherd for close on fifty 
years, during which time his sons and daughters had 
grown up, married, and gone away, mostly to a consider- 
able distance, leaving their aged parents alone once more. 
Then the wife, who was a strong woman and of an enter- 
prising temper, found an opening for herself at a distance 
from home where she could start a little business. Caleb 
indignantly refused to give up shepherding in his place 
to take part in so unheard-of an adventure; but after 



48 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



a year or more of life in his lonely hut among the hills 
and cold, empty cottage in the village, he at length tore 
himself away from that beloved spot and set forth on 
the longest journey of his life — about forty-five miles — 
to join her and help in the work of her new home. Here 
a few years later I found him, aged seventy-two, but 
owing to his increasing infirmities looking considerably 
more. When he considered that his father, a shepherd 




IURN>UM B 



o» ' AVON at 3A1.1.3BTTHY 



before him on those same Wiltshire Downs, lived to 
eighty-six, and his mother to eighty-four, and that both 
were vigorous and led active lives almost to the end, he 
thought it strange that his own work should be so soon 
done. For in heart and mind he was still young; he 
did not want to rest yet. 

Since that first meeting nine years have passed, and 
as he is actually better in health to-day than he was 
then, there is good reason to hope that his staying power 
will equal that of his father. 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS 49 

I was at first struck with the singularity of Caleb's 
appearance, and later by the expression of his eyes. A 
very tall, big-boned, lean, round-shouldered man, he 
was uncouth almost to the verge of grotesqueness, and 
walked painfully with the aid of a stick, dragging his 
shrunken and shortened bad leg. His head was long 
and narrow, and his high forehead, long nose, long chin, 
and long, coarse, grey whiskers, worn like a beard on 
his throat, produced a goat-like effect. This was height- 
ened by the ears and eyes. The big ears stood out from 
his head, and owing to a peculiar bend or curl in the 
membrane at the top they looked at certain angles almost 
pointed. The hazel eyes were wonderfully clear, but 
that quality was less remarkable than the unhuman in- 
telligence in them — fawn-like eyes that gazed steadily 
at you as one may gaze through the window, open back 
and front, of a house at the landscape beyond. This 
peculiarity was a little disconcerting at first, when, after 
making his acquaintance out of doors, I went in uninvited 
and sat down with him at his own fireside. The busy 
old wife talked of this and that, and hinted as politely 
as she knew how that I was in her way. To her practical, 
peasant mind there was no sense in my being there. "He 
be a stranger to we, and we be strangers to he." Caleb 
was silent, and his clear eyes showed neither annoyance 
nor pleasure but only their native, wild alertness, but 
the caste feeling is always less strong in the hill shepherd 
than in other men who are on the land; in some cases 
it will vanish at a touch, and it was so in this one. A 
canary in a cage hanging in the kitchen served to intro- 
duce the subject of birds captive and birds free. I said 
that I liked the little yellow bird, and was not vexed to 



SO A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

see him in a cage, since he was cage-born ; but I considered 
that those who caught wild birds and kept them prisoners 
did not properly understand things. This happened to 
be Caleb's view. He had a curiously tender feeling about 
the little wild birds, and one amusing incident of his 
boyhood which he remembered came out during our talk. 
He was out on the down one summer day in charge of 
his father's flock, when two boys of the village on a 
ramble in the hills came and sat down on the turf by his 
side. One of them had a titlark, or meadow pipit, which 
he had just caught, in his hand, and there was a hot 
argument as to which of the two was the lawful owner 
of the poor little captive. The facts were as follows. 
One of the boys having found the nest became possessed 
with the desire to get the bird. His companion at once 
offered to catch it for him, and together they withdrew 
to a distance and sat down and waited until the bird re- 
turned to sit on the eggs. Then the young birdcatcher 
returned to the spot, and creeping quietly up to within 
five or six feet of the nest threw his hat so that it fell 
over the sitting titlark; but after having thus secured 
it he refused to give it up. The dispute waxed hotter 
as they sat there, and at last when it got to the point of 
threats of cuffs on the ear and slaps on the face they 
agreed to fight it out, the victor to have the titlark. The 
bird was then put under a hat for safety on the smooth 
turf a few feet away, and the boys proceeded to take 
off their jackets and roll up their shirt-sleeves, after 
which they faced one another, and were just about to 
begin when Caleb, thrusting out his crook, turned the 
hat over and away flew the titlark. 

The boys, deprived of their bird and of an excuse, for 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS 51 

a fight, would gladly have discharged their fury on Caleb, 
but they durst not, seeing that his dog was lying at his 
side; they could only threaten and abuse him, call him 
bad names, and finally put on their coats and walk off. 

That pretty little tale of a titlark was but the first of 
a long succession of memories of his early years, with 
half a century of shepherding life on the downs, which 
came out during our talks on many autumn and winter 
evenings as we sat by his kitchen fire. The earlier of 
these memories were always the best to me, because 
they took one back sixty years or more, to a time when 
there was more wildness in the earth than now, and a 
nobler wild animal life. Even more interesting were 
some of the memories of his father, Isaac Bawcombe, 
whose time went back to the early years of the nineteenth 
century. Caleb cherished an admiration and reverence 
for his father's memory which were almost a worship, 
and he loved to describe him as he appeared in his old 
age, when upwards of eighty. He was erect and tall, 
standing six feet two in height, well proportioned, with 
a clean-shaved, florid face, clear, dark eyes, and silver- 
white hair ; and at this later period of his life he always 
wore the dress of an old order of pensioners to which 
he had been admitted — a soft, broad, white felt hat, thick 
boots and brown leather leggings, and a long, grey cloth 
overcoat with red collar and brass buttons. 

According to Caleb, he must have been an exceedingly 
fine specimen of a man, both physically and morally. 
Born in 1800, he began following a flock as a boy, and 
continued as shepherd on the same farm until he was 
sixty, never rising to more than seven shillings a week 
and nothing found, since he lived in the cottage where 



S2 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

he was born and which he inherited from his father. 
That a man of his fine powers, a head-shepherd on a 
large hill-farm, should have had no better pay than that 
down to the year 1860, after nearly half a century of 
work in one place, seems almost incredible. Even his 
sons, as they grew up to man's estate, advised him to 
ask for an increase, but he would not. Seven shillings 
a week he had always had; and that small sum, with 
something his wife earned by making highly finished 
smock-frocks, had been sufficient to keep them all in 
a decent way; and his sons were now all earning their 
own living. But Caleb got married, and resolved to 
leave the old farm at Bishop to take a better place at a 
distance from home, at Warminster, which had been 
offered him. He would there have a cottage to live in, 
nine shillings a week, and a sack of barley for his dog. 
At that time the shepherd had to keep his own dog — 
no small expense to him when his wages were no more 
than six to eight shillings a week. But Caleb was his 
father's favourite son, and the old man could not endure 
the thought of losing sight of him; and at last, finding 
that he could not persuade him not to leave the old home, 
he became angry, and told him that if he went away 
to Warminster for the sake of the higher wages and 
barley for the dog he would disown him! This was a 
serious matter to Caleb, in spite of the fact that a shep- 
herd has no money to leave to his children when he passes 
away. He went nevertheless, for, though he loved and 
reverenced his father, he had a young wife who pulled 
the other way; and he was absent for years, and when 
he returned the old man's heart had softened, so that 
he was glad to welcome him back to the old home. 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS S3 



Meanwhile at that humble cottage at Winterbourne 
Bishop great things had happened; old Isaac was no 
longer shepherding on the downs, but living very com- 
fortably in his own cottage in the village. The change 
came about in this way. 

The downland shepherds, Caleb said, were as a rule 
clever poachers; and it is really not surprising, when 




WL.OADWG SHCEP_ ^-—^Br- £\} ' 
AT THE MARKET ^^ 



one considers the temptation to a man with a wife and 
several hungry children, besides himself and a dog, to 
feed out of about seven shillings a week. But old Baw- 
combe was an exception: he would take no game, furred 
or feathered, nor, if he could prevent it, allow another 
to take anything from the land fed by his flock. Caleb 
and his brothers, when as boys and youths they began 
their shepherding, sometimes caught a rabbit, or their 
dog caught and killed one without their encouragement; 



54 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

but, however the thing came into their hands, they could 
not take it home on account of their father. Now it 
happened that an elderly gentleman who had the shooting 
was a keen sportsman, and that in several successive 
years he found a wonderful difference in the amount 
of game at one spot among the hills and in all the rest of 
his hill property. The only explanation the keeper could 
give was that Isaac Bawcombe tended his flock on that 
down where rabbits, hares, and partridges were so plenti- 
ful. One autumn day the gentleman was shooting over 
that down, and seeing a big man in a smock-frock stand- 
ing motionless, crook in hand, regarding him, he called 
out to his keeper, who was with him, "Who is that big 
man?" and was told that it was Shepherd Bawcombe. 
The old gentleman pulled some money out of his pocket, 
and said, "Give him this half-crown, and thank him for 
the good sport I've had to-day." But after the coin had 
been given the giver still remained standing there, think- 
ing, perhaps, that he had not yet sufficiently rewarded 
the man; and at last, before turning away, he shouted, 
"Bawcombe, that's not all. You'll get something more 
by and by." 

Isaac had not long to wait for the something more, 
and it turned out not to be the hare or brace of birds he 
had half expected. It happened that the sportsman was 
one of the trustees of an ancient charity which provided 
for six of the most deserving old men of the parish of 
Bishop; now, one of the six had recently died, and on 
this gentleman's recommendation Bawcombe had been 
elected to fill the vacant place. The letter from Salisbury 
informing him of his election and commanding his pres- 
ence in that city filled him with astonishment ; for, though 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS 55 

he was sixty years old and the father of three sons now 
out in the world, he could not yet regard himself as an 
old man, for he had never known a day's illness, nor 
an ache, and was famed in all that neighbourhood for 
his great physical strength and endurance. And now, 
with his own cottage to live in, eight shillings a week, 
and his pensioner's garments, with certain other benefits, 
and a shilling a day besides which his old master paid 
him for some services at the farm-house in the village, 
Isaac found himself very well off indeed, and he enjoyed 
his prosperous state for twenty-six years. Then, in 1886, 
his old wife fell ill and died, and no sooner was she in 
her grave than he, too, began to droop ; and soon, before 
the year was out, he followed her, because, as the neigh- 
bours said, they had always been a loving pair and one 
could not 'bide without the other. 

This chapter has already had its proper ending and 
there was no intention of adding to it, but now for a 
special reason, which I trust the reader will pardon 
when he hears it, I must go on to say something about 
that strange phenomenon of death succeeding death in 
old married couples, one dying for no other reason than 
that the other has died. For it is our instinct to hold 
fast to life, and the older a man gets if he be sane the 
more he becomes like a new-born child in the impulse 
to grip tightly. A strange and a rare thing among people 
generally (the people we know), it is nevertheless quite 
common among persons of the labouring class in the 
rural districts. I have sometimes marvelled at the num- 
ber of such cases to be met with in the villages ; but when 
one comes to think about it one ceases to wonder that 



56 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



it should be so. For the labourer on the land goes on 
from boyhood to the end of life in the same everlasting 
round, the changes from task to task, according to the 
seasons, being no greater than in the case of the animals 
that alter their actions and habits to suit the varying 
conditions of the year. March and August and Decem- 




T>!£ MURDLEMAKER 



ber, and every month, will bring about the changes in 
the atmosphere and earth and vegetation and in the ani- 
mals, which have been from of old, which he knows how 
to meet, and the old, familiar task, lambing-time, shear- 
ing-time, root and seed crops, hoeing, haymaking, har- 
vesting. It is a life of the extremest simplicity, without 
all those interests outside the home and the daily task, 
the innumerable distractions, common to all persons in 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS 57 

other classes and to the workmen in towns as well. Inci- 
dentally it may be said that it is also the healthiest, that, 
speaking generally, the agricultural labourer is the health- 
iest and sanest man in the land, if not also the happiest, 
as some believe. 

It is this life of simple, unchanging actions and of 
habits that are like instincts, of hard labour in sun and 
wind and rain from day to day, with its weekly break 
and rest, and of but few comforts and no luxuries, which 
serves to bind man and wife so closely. And the longer 
their life goes on together the closer and more unbreakable 
the union grows. They are growing old: old friends 
and companions have died or left them; their children 
have married and gone away and have their own families 
and affairs, so that the old folks at home are little remem- 
bered, and to all others they have become of little conse- 
quence in the world. But they do not know it, for they 
are together, cherishing the same memories, speaking 
of the same old, familiar things, and their lost friends 
and companions, their absent, perhaps estranged children, 
are with them still in mind as in the old days. The past 
is with them more than the present, to give an undying 
interest to life; for they share it, and it is only when 
one goes, when the old wife gets the tea ready and goes 
mechanically to the door to gaze out, knowing that her 
tired man will come in no more to take his customary 
place and listen to all the things she has stored up in 
her mind during the day to tell him ; and when the tired 
labourer comes in at dusk to find no old wife waiting to 
give him his tea and talk to him while he refreshes 
himself, he all at once realizes his position; he finds him- 
self cut off from the entire world, from all of his kind. 



58 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Where are they all ? The enduring sympathy of that one 
soul that was with him till now had kept him in touch 
with life, had made it seem unchanged and unchangeable, 
and with that soul has vanished the old, sweet illusion 
as well as all ties, all common, human affection. He is 
desolate, indeed, alone in a desert world, and it is not 
strange that in many and many a case, even in that of 
a man still strong, untouched by disease and good for 
another decade or two, the loss, the awful solitude, has 
proved too much for him. 

Such cases, I have said, are common, but they are 
not recorded, though it is possible with labour to pick 
them out in the church registers; but in the churchyards 
you do not find them, since the farm-labourer has only 
a green mound to mark the spot where he lies. Never- 
theless, he is sometimes honoured with a gravestone, and 
last August I came by chance on one on which was 
recorded a case like that of Isaac Bawcombe and his 
life-mate. 

The churchyard is in one of the prettiest and most 
secluded villages in the downland country described in 
this book. The church is ancient and beautiful and inter- 
esting in many ways, and the churchyard, too, is one of 
the most interesting I know, a beautiful green, tree- 
shaded spot, with an extraordinary number of tombs and 
gravestones, many of them dated in the eighteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, inscribed with names of families 
which have long died out. 

I went on that afternoon to pass an hour in the church- 
yard, and finding an old man in labourer's clothes resting 
on a tomb, I sat down and entered into conversation with 
him. He was seventy-nine, he told me, and past work, 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS 59 

and he had three shillings a week from the parish; but 
he was very deaf and it fatigued me to talk to him, and 
seeing the church open I went in. On previous visits 
I had had a good deal of trouble to get the key, and to 
find it open now was a pleasant surprise. An old woman 
was there dusting the seats, and by and by, while I was 
talking with her, the old labourer came stumping in with 
his ponderous, iron-shod boots and without taking off his 
old, rusty hat, and began shouting at the church-cleaner 
about a pair of trousers he had given her to mend, which 
he wanted badly. Leaving them to their arguing I went 
out and began studying the inscriptions on the stones, 
so hard to make out in some instances; the old man fol- 
lowed and went his way; then the church-cleaner came 
out to where I was standing. "A tiresome old man!" 
she said. "He's that deaf he has to shout to hear himself 
speak, then you've got to shout back — and all about his 
old trousers!" 

"I suppose he wants them," I returned, "and you 
promised to do them, so he has some reason for going 
at you about it." 

"Oh, no, he hasn't," she replied. "The girl brought 
them for me to mend, and I said, 'Leave them and I'll 
do them when I've time' — how did I know he wanted 
them in a hurry ? A troublesome old man I" 

By and by, taking a pair of spectacles out of her pocket, 
she put them on, and going down on her knees she began 
industriously picking the old, brown, dead moss out of the 
lettering on one side of the tomb. "I'd like to know 
what it says on this stone," she said. 

"Well, you can read it for yourself, now you've got 
your glasses on." 



60 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

"I can't read. You see, I'm old — seventy-six years, 
and when I were little we were very poor and I couldn't 
get no schooling. I've got these glasses to do my sewing, 
and only put them on to get this stuff out so's you could 
read it. I'd like to hear you read it." 

I began to get interested in the old dame who talked 
to me so freely. She was small and weak-looking, and 
appeared very thin in her limp, old, faded gown; she 
had a meek, patient expression on her face, and her 
voice, too, like her face, expressed weariness and resigna- 
tion. 

"But if you have always lived here you must know 
what is said on this stone?" 

"No, I don't ; nobody never read it to me, and I couldn't 
read it because I wasn't taught to read. But I'd like to 
hear you read it." 

It was a long inscription to a person named Ash, 
gentleman, of this parish, who departed this life over 
a century ago, and was a man of a noble and generous 
disposition, good as a husband, a father, a friend, and 
charitable to the poor. Under all were some lines of 
verse, scarcely legible in spite of the trouble she had 
taken to remove the old moss from the letters. 

She listened with profound interest, then said, "I never 
heard all that before; I didn't know the name, though 
I've known this stone since I was a child. I used to 
climb on to it then. Can you read me another ?" 

I read her another and several more, then came to 
one which she said she knew — every word of it, for this 
was the grave of the sweetest, kindest woman that ever 
lived. Oh, how good this dear woman had been to her 
in her young married life more'n fifty years ago! If 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS 61 

that dear lady had only lived it would not have been so 
hard for her when her trouble come ! 

"And what was your trouble?" 

"It was the loss of my poor man. He was such a 
good man, a thatcher ; and he fell from a rick and injured 
his spine, and he died, poor fellow, and left me with our 
five little children." Then, having told me her own 
tragedy, to my surprise she brightened up and begged 
me to read other inscriptions to her. 

I went on reading, and presently she said, "No, that's 
wrong. There wasn't ever a Lampard in this parish. 
That I know." 

"You don't know! There certainly was a Lampard 
or it would not be stated here, cut in deep letters on 
this stone." 

"No, there wasn't a Lampard. I've never known such 
a name and I've lived here all my life." 

"But there were people living here before you came 
on the scene. He died a long time ago, this Lampard — 
in 1714, it says. And you are only seventy-six, you tell 
me; that is to say, you were born in 1835, and that would 
be one hundred and twenty-one years after he died." 

"That's a long time! It must be very old, this stone. 
And the church too. I've heard say it was once a Roman 
Catholic church. Is that true?" 

"Why, of course, it's true — all the old churches were, 
and we were all of that faith until a King of England 
had a quarrel with the Pope and determined he would 
be Pope himself as well as king in his own country. So 
he turned all the priests and monks out, and took their 
propertv and churches and had his own men put in. That 
was Henry VIII." 



62 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

"I've heard something about that king and his wives. 
But about Lampard, it do seem strange I've never heard 
that name before." 

"Not strange at all; it was a common name in this 
part of Wiltshire in former days; you find it in dozens 
of churchyards, but you'll find very few Lampards living 
in the villages. Why, I could tell you a dozen or twenty 
surnames, some queer, funny names, that were common 
in these parts not more than a century ago which seem 
to have quite died out." 

"I should like to hear some of them if you'll tell me." 

"Let me think a moment: there was Thorr, Pizzie, 
Gee, Every, Pottle, Kiddle, Toomer, Shergold, and " 

Here she interrupted to say that she knew three of 
the names I had mentioned. Then, pointing to a small, 
upright gravestone about twenty feet away, she added, 
"And there's one." 

"Very well," I said, "but don't keep putting me out — 
I've got more names in my mind to tell you. Maid- 
ment, Marchmont, Velvin, Burpitt, Winzur, Rideout, 
Cullurne." 

Of these she only knew one — Rideout. 

Then I went over to the stone she had pointed to and 
read the inscription to John Toomer and his wife Re- 
becca. She died first, in March, 1877, aged 72; he in 
July the same year, aged 75. 

"You knew them, I suppose?" 

"Yes, they belonged here, both of them." 

"Tell me about them." 

"There's nothing to tell: he was only a labourer and 
worked on the same farm all his life." 

"Who put a stone over them — their children?" 



A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS 63 

"No, they're all poor and live away. I think it was 
a lady who lived here; she'd been good to them, and 
she came and stood here when they put old John in the 
ground." 

"But I want to hear more." 

"There's no more, I've said; he was a labourer, and 
after she died he died." 

"Yes? go on." 

"How can I go on? There's no more. I knew them 
so well; they lived in the little, thatched cottage over 
there, where the Millards live now." 

"Did they fall ill at the same time?" 

"Oh, no, he was as well as could be, still at work, till 
she died, then he went on in a strange way. He would 
come in of an evening and call his wife. 'Mother! 
Mother, where are you?' you'd hear him call, 'Mother, 
be you upstairs? Mother, ain't you coming down for a 
bit of bread and cheese before you go to bed?' And 
then in a little while he just died." 

"And you said there was nothing to tell!" 

"No, there wasn't anything. He was just one of us, 
a labourer on the farm." 

I then gave her something, and to my surprise after 
taking it she made me an elaborate curtsy. It rather 
upset me, for I had thought we had got on very well 
together and were quite free and easy in our talk, very 
much on a level. But she was not done with me yet. 
She followed to the gate, and holding out her open hand 
with that small gift in it, she said in a pathetic voice, "Did 
you think, sir, I was expecting this? I had no such 
thought and didn't want it." 

And I had no thought of saying or writing a word 



64 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

about her. But since that day she has haunted me — 
she and her old John Toomer, and it has just now 
occurred to me that by putting her in my book I may 
be able to get her out of my mind. 







SKR.ETWTOW 






CHAPTER V 
Early Memories 

A child shepherd — Isaac and his children — Shepherding 
in boyhood — Two notable sheep-dogs — Jack, the 
adder-killer — Sitting on an adder — Rough and the 
drovers — The Salisbury coach — A sheep-dog suck- 
ling a lamb 

Caleb's shepherding began in childhood; at all events 
he had had his first experience of it at that time. Many 
an old shepherd, whose father was shepherd before him, 
has told me that he began to go with the flock very early 
in life, when he was no more than ten to twelve years 
of age. Caleb remembered being put in charge of his 
father's flock at the tender age of six. It was a new and 
wonderful experience, and made so vivid and lasting 

65 



66 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

an impression on his mind that now, when he is past 
eighty, he speaks of it very feelingly as of something 
which happened yesterday. 

It was harvesting time, and Isaac, who was a good 
reaper, was wanted in the field, but he could find no 
one, not even a boy, to take charge of his flock in the 
meantime, and so to be able to reap and keep an eye on 
the flock at the same time he brought his sheep down 
to the part of the down adjoining the field. It was on 
his "liberty," or that part of the down where he was 
entitled to have his flock. He then took his very small 
boy, Caleb, and placing him with the sheep told him they 
were now in his charge ; that he was not to lose sight of 
them, and at the same time not to run about among the 
furze-bushes for fear of treading on an adder. By and 
by the sheep began straying off among the furze-bushes, 
and no sooner would they disappear from sight than he 
imagined they were lost for ever, or would be unless 
he quickly found them, and to find them he had to run 
about among the bushes with the terror of adders in 
his mind, and the two troubles together kept him crying 
with misery all the time. Then, at intervals, Isaac would 
leave his reaping and come to see how he was getting 
on, and the tears would vanish from his eyes, and he 
would feel very brave again, and to his father's question 
he would reply that he was getting on very well. 

Finally his father came and took him to the field, to 
his great relief; but he did not carry him in his arms; 
he strode along at his usual pace and let the little fellow 
run after him, stumbling and falling and picking himself 
up again and running on. And by and by one of the 
women in the field cried out, "Be you not ashamed, Isaac, 



EARLY MEMORIES 67 

to go that pace and not bide for the little child! I do 
b'lieve he's no more'n seven year — poor mite!" 

"No more'n six," answered Isaac proudly, with a laugh. 

But though not soft or tender with his children he 
was very fond of them, and when he came home early 
in the evening he would get them round him and talk 
to them, and sing old songs and ballads he had learnt in 
his young years — "Down in the Village," "The Days of 
Queen Elizabeth," "The Blacksmith," "The Gown of 
Green," "The Dawning of the Day," and many others, 
which Caleb in the end got by heart and used to sing, 
too, when he was grown up. 

Caleb was about nine when he began to help regularly 
with the flock; that was in the summertime, when the 
flock was put every day on the down and when Isaac's 
services were required for the hay-making and later for 
harvesting and other work. His best memories of this 
period relate to his mother and to two sheep-dogs, Jack 
at first and afterwards Rough, both animals of original 
character. Jack was a great favourite of his master, 
who considered him a "tarrable good dog." He was 
rather short-haired, like the old Welsh sheep-dog once 
common in Wiltshire, but entirely black instead of the 
usual colour — blue with a sprinkling of black spots. This 
dog had an intense hatred of adders and never failed to 
kill every one he discovered. At the same time he knew 
that they were dangerous enemies to tackle, and on catch- 
ing sight of one his hair would instantly bristle up, and 
he would stand as if paralysed for some moments, glaring 
at it and gnashing his teeth, then springing like a cat 
upon it he would seize it in his mouth, only to hurl it 
from him to a distance. This action he would repeat 



68 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

until the adder was dead, and Isaac would then put it 
under a furze-bush to take it home and hang it on a 
certain gate. The farmer, too, like the dog, hated adders, 
and paid his shepherd sixpence for every one his dog 
killed. 

One day Caleb, with one of his brothers, was out with 
the flock, amusing themselves in their usual way on 
the turf with nine morris-men and the shepherd's puzzle, 
when all at once their mother appeared unexpectedly on 
the scene. It was her custom, when the boys were sent 
out with the flock, to make expeditions to the down just 
to see what they were up to; and hiding her approach 
by keeping to a hedge-side or by means of the furze- 
bushes, she would sometimes come upon them with dis- 
concerting suddenness. On this occasion just where the 
boys had been playing there was a low, stout furze-bush, 
so dense and flat-topped that one could use it as a seat, 
and his mother taking off and folding her shawl placed 
it on the bush, and sat down on it to rest herself after 
her long walk. "I can see her now," said Caleb, "sitting 
on that furze-bush, in her smock and leggings, with a 
big hat like a man's on her head — for that's how she 
dressed." But in a few moments she jumped up, crying 
out that she felt a snake under her, and snatched off the 
shawl, and there, sure enough, out of the middle of the 
flat bush-top appeared the head of an adder, flicking 
out its tongue. The dog, too, saw it, dashed at the 
bush, forcing his muzzle and head into the middle of it, 
seized the serpent by its body and plucked it out and 
threw it from him, only to follow it up and kill it in the 
usual way. 

Rough was a large, shaggy, grey-blue bobtail bitch 



EARLY MEMORIES 



69 



with a white collar. She was a clever, good all-round 
dog, but had originally been trained for the road, and 
one of the shepherd's stories about her relates to her 
intelligence in her own special line — the driving of sheep. 
One day he and his smaller brother were in charge 
of the flock on the down, and were on the side where it 
dips down to the turnpike-road about a mile and a half 




SHEPHERD AHD FLOCK 



from the village, when a large flock, driven by two men 
and two dogs, came by. They were going to the Britford 
sheep-fair and were behind time; Isaac had started at 
daylight that morning with sheep for the same fair, and 
that was the reason of the boys being with the flock. 
As the flock on the down was feeding quietly the boys 
determined to go to the road to watch the sheep and men 
pass, and arriving at the roadside they saw that the dogs 
were too tired to work and the men were getting on 
with great difficulty. One of them, looking intently at 



70 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Rough, asked if she would work. "Oh, yes, she'll work," 
said the boy proudly, and calling Rough he pointed to 
the flock moving very slowly along the road and over 
the turf on either side of it. Rough knew what was 
wanted; she had been looking on and had taken the 
situation in with her professional eye; away she dashed, 
and running up and down, first on one side then on the 
other, quickly put the whole flock, numbering 800 into 
the road and gave them a good start. 

"Why, she be a road dog!" exclaimed the drover de- 
lightedly. "She's better for me on the road than for 
you on the down; I'll buy her of you." 

"No, I mustn't sell her," said Caleb. 

"Look here, boy," said the other, "I'll give 'ee a 
sovran and this young dog, an' he'll be a good one with 
a little more training." 

"No, I mustn't," said Caleb, distressed at the other's 
persistence. 

"Well, will you come a little way on the road with 
us?" asked the drover. 

This the boys agreed to and went on for about a quar- 
ter of a mile, when all at once the Salisbury coach 
appeared on the road, coming to meet them. This new 
trouble was pointed out to Rough, and at once when 
her little master had given the order she dashed barking 
into the midst of the mass of sheep and drove them 
furiously to the side from end to end of the extended 
flock, making a clear passage for the coach, which was 
not delayed a minute. And no sooner was the coach gone 
than the sheep were put back into the road. 

Then the drover pulled out his sovereign once more 
and tried to make the boy take it. 



EARLY MEMORIES 71 

"I mustn't," he repeated, almost in tears. "What 
would father say?" 

"Say! He won't say nothing. He'll think you've 
done well." 

But Caleb thought that perhaps his father would say 
something, and when he remembered certain whippings 
he had experienced in the past he had an uncomfortable 
sensation about his back. "No, I mustn't," was all he 
could say, and then the drovers with a laugh went on 
with their sheep. 

When Isaac came home and the adventure was told 
to him he laughed and said that he meant to sell Rough 
some day. He used to say this occasionally to tease his 
wife because of the dog's intense devotion to her ; and 
she, being without a sense of humour and half thinking 
that he meant it, would get up out of her seat and sol- 
emnly declare that if he ever sold Rough she would never 
again go out to the down to see what the boys were 
up to. 

One day she visited the boys when they had the flock 
near the turnpike, and seating herself on the turf a few 
yards from the road got out her work and began sewing. 
Presently they spied a big, singular-looking man coming 
at a swinging pace along the road. He was in shirt- 
sleeves, barefooted, and wore a straw hat without a rim. 
Rough eyed the strange being's approach with suspicion, 
and going to her mistress placed herself at her side. The 
man came up and sat down at a distance of three or four 
yards from the group, and Rough, looking dangerous, 
started up and put her forepaws on her mistress's lap 
and began uttering a low growl. 

"Will that dog bite, missus?" said the man. 



72 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

"Maybe he will," said she. "I won't answer for he 
if you come any nearer." 

The two boys had been occupied cutting a faggot from 
a furze-bush with a bill-hook, and now held a whispered 
consultation as to what they would do if the man tried 
to "hurt mother," and agreed that as soon as Rough 
had got her teeth in his leg they would attack him about 
the head with the bill-hook. They were not required to 
go into action; the stranger could not long endure 
Rough's savage aspect, and very soon he got up and 
resumed his travels. 

The shepherd remembered another curious incident in 
Rough's career. At one time when she had a litter of 
pups at home she was yet compelled to be a great part 
of the day with the flock of ewes as they could not do 
without her. The boys just then were bringing up a 
motherless lamb by hand and they would put it with the 
sheep, and to feed it during the day were obliged to catch 
a ewe with milk. The lamb trotted at Caleb's heels like 
a dog, and one day when it was hungry and crying to 
be fed, when Rough happened to be sitting on her 
haunches close by, it occurred to him that Rough's milk 
might serve as well as a sheep's. The lamb was put to 
her and took very kindly to its canine foster-mother, 
wriggling its tail and pushing vigorously with its nose. 
Rough submitted patiently to the trial, and the result was 
that the lamb adopted the sheep-dog as its mother and 
sucked her milk several times every day, to the great 
admiration of all who witnessed it. 



O ' n ^^§* 








h 



v 



^•■OCV 8AKP0RP' »» M*BriK •» i»c IH/UBDCR. 



CHAPTER VI 
Shepherd Isaac Bawcombe 

A noble shepherd — A fighting village blacksmith — Old 
Joe the collier — A story of his strength — Donkeys 
poisoned by yew — The shepherd without his sheep 
— How the shepherd killed a deer 

To me the most interesting of Caleb's old memories were 
those relating to his father, partly on account of the 
man's fine character, and partly because they went so 
far back, beginning in the early years of the last century. 
Altogether he must have been a very fine specimen of 
a man, both physically and morally. In Caleb's mind 
he was undoubtedly the first among men morally, but 
there were two other men supposed to be his equals in 
bodily strength, one a native of the village, the other a 
periodical visitor. The first was Jarvis the blacksmith, 
a man of an immense chest and big arms, one of Isaac's 
greatest friends, and very good-tempered except when 

73 



74 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

in his cups, for he did occasionally get drunk and then 
he quarrelled with anyone and everyone. 

One afternoon he had made himself quite tipsy at 
the inn, and when going home, swaying about and 
walking all over that road, he all at once caught sight of 
the big shepherd coming soberly on behind. No sooner 
did he see him than it occurred to his wild and muddled 
mind that he had a quarrel with this very man, Shepherd 
Isaac, a quarrel of so pressing a nature that there was 
nothing to do but to fight it out there and then. He 
planted himself before the shepherd and challenged him 
to fight. Isaac smiled and said nothing. 

"I'll fight thee about this," he repeated, and began 
tugging at his coat, and after getting it off again made 
up to Isaac, who still smiled and said no word. Then 
he pulled his waistcoat off, and finally his shirt, and with 
nothing but his boots and breeches on once more squared 
up to Isaac and threw himself into his best fighting atti- 
tude. 

"I doan't want to fight thee," said Isaac at length, "but 
I be thinking 'twould be best to take thee home." And 
suddenly dashing in he seized Jarvis round the waist 
with one arm, grasped him around the legs with the 
other, and flung the big man across his shoulder, and 
carried him off, struggling and shouting, to his cottage. 
There at the door, pale and distressed, stood the poor 
wife waiting for her lord, when Isaac arrived, and going 
straight in dropped the smith down on his own floor, 
and with the remark, "Here be your man," walked off to 
his cottage and his tea. 

The other powerful man was Old Joe the collier, who 
flourished and was known in every village in the Salis- 



SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE 75 

bury Plain district during the first thirty-five years of 
the last century. I first heard of this once famous man 
from Caleb, whose boyish imagination had been affected 
by his gigantic figure, mighty voice, and his wandering 
life over all that wide world of Salisbury Plain. After- 
wards when I became acquainted with a good many old 
men, aged from 75 to 90 and upwards, I found that Old 
Joe's memory is still green in a good many villages of the 





M«' ROLLESTOWI •« iALlSfcl'RY PLAIN 



district, from the upper waters of the Avon to the borders 
of Dorset. But it is only these ancients who knew him 
that keep it green; by and by when they are gone Old 
Joe and his neddies will be remembered no more. 

In those days — down to about 1840 — it was customary 
to burn peat in the cottages, the first cost of which was 
about four and sixpence the wagon-load — as much as I 
should require to keep me warm for a month in winter ; 
but the cost of its conveyance to the villages of the Plain 
was about five to six shillings per load, as it came from 
a considerable distance, mostly from the New Forest. 
How the labourers at that time, when they were paid 



76 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

seven or eight shillings a week, could afford to buy fuel 
at such prices to bake their rye bread and to keep the 
frost out of their bones is a marvel to us. Isaac was a 
good deal better off than most of the villagers in this 
respect, as his master — for he never had but one — allowed 
him the use of a wagon and the driver's services for the 
conveyance of one load of peat each year. The wagon- 
load of peat and another of faggots lasted him the year 
with the furze obtained from his "liberty" on the down. 
Coal at that time was only used by the blacksmiths in the 
villages, and was conveyed in sacks on ponies or donkeys, 
and of those who were engaged in this business the best 
known was Old Joe. He appeared periodically in the 
villages with his eight donkeys, or neddies as he called 
them, with jingling bells on their headstalls and their 
burdens of two sacks of small coal on each. In stature 
he was a giant of about six feet three, very broad-chested, 
and invariably wore a broad-brimmed hat, a slate-coloured 
smock-frock, and blue worsted stockings to his knees. 
He walked behind the donkeys, a very long staff in his 
hand, shouting at them from time to time, and occasionally 
swinging his long staff and bringing it down on the back 
of a donkey who was not keeping up the pace. In this 
way he wandered from village to village from end to 
end of the Plain, getting rid of his small coal and load- 
ing his animals with scrap iron which the blacksmiths 
would keep for him, and as he continued his rounds for 
nearly forty years he was a familiar figure to every 
inhabitant throughout the district. 

There are some stories still told of his great strength, 
one of which is worth giving. He was a man of iron con- 
stitution and gave himself a hard life, and he was hard 



SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE 11 

on his neddies, but he had to feed them well, and this 
he often contrived to do at some one else's expense. One 
night at a village on the Wylye it was discovered that he 
had put his eight donkeys in a meadow in which the grass 
was just ripe for mowing. The enraged farmer took 
them to the village pound and locked them up, but in the 
morning the donkeys and Joe with them had vanished 
and the whole village wondered how he had done it. The 
stone wall of the pound was four feet and a half high 
and the iron gate was locked, yet he had lifted the don- 
keys up and put them over and had loaded them and gone 
before anyone was up. 

Once Joe met with a very great misfortune. He 
arrived late at a village, and finding there was good feed 
in the churchyard and that everybody was in bed, he put 
his donkeys in and stretched himself out among the grave- 
stones to sleep. He had no nerves and no imagination; 
and was tired, and slept very soundly until it was light 
and time to put his neddies out before any person came 
by and discovered that he had been making free with the 
rector's grass. Glancing round he could see no donkeys, 
and only when he stood up he found they had not made 
their escape but were there all about him, lying among 
the gravestones, stone dead every one! He had for- 
gotten that a churchyard was a dangerous place to put 
hungry animals in. They had browsed on the luxuriant 
yew that grew there, and this was the result. 

In time he recovered from his loss and replaced his 
dead neddies with others, and continued for many years 
longer on his rounds. 

To return to Isaac Bawcombe. He was born, we have 
seen, in 1800, and began following a flock as a boy and 



78 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

continued as shepherd on the same farm for a period 
of fifty-five years. The care of sheep was the one all- 
absorbing occupation of his life, and how much it was to 
him appears in this anecdote of his state of mind when 
he was deprived of it for a time. The flock was sold and 
Isaac was left without sheep, and with little to do except 
to wait from Michaelmas to Candlemas, when there would 
be sheep again at the farm. It was a long time to Isaac, 
and he found his enforced holiday so tedious that he 
made himself a nuisance to his wife in the house. Forty 
times a day he would throw off his hat and sit down, 
resolved to be happy at his own fireside, but after a few 
minutes the desire to be up and doing would return, and 
up he would get and out he would go again. One dark 
cloudy evening a man from the farm put his head in at 
the door. "Isaac," he said, "There be sheep for 'ee up 
't the farm — two hundred ewes and a hundred more to 
come in dree days. Master, he sent I to say you be 
wanted." And away the man went. 

Isaac jumped up and hurried forth without taking his 
crook from the corner and actually without putting on 
his hat! His wife called out after him, and getting no 
response sent the boy with his hat to overtake him. But 
the little fellow soon returned with the hat — he could not 
overtake his father! 

He was away three or four hours at the farm, then 
returned, his hair very wet, his face beaming, and sat 
down with a great sigh of pleasure. "Two hundred 
ewes," he said, "and a hundred more to come — what d'y°u 
think of that?" 

"Well, Isaac," said she, "I hope thee'll be happy now 
and let I alone." 



SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE 79 

After all that had been told to me about the elder 
Bawcombe's life and character, it came somewhat as a 
shock to learn that at one period during his early man- 
hood he had indulged in one form of poaching — a sport 
which had a marvellous fascination for the people of 
England in former times, but was pretty well extinguished 
during the first quarter of the last century. Deer he had 




taken ; and the whole tale of the deer-stealing, which was 
a common offence in that part of Wiltshire down to about 
1834, sounds strange at the present day. 

Large herds of deer were kept at that time at an estate 
a few miles from Winterbourne Bishop, and it often 
happened that many of the animals broke bounds and 
roamed singly and in small bands over the hills. When 
deer were observed in the open, certain of the villagers 
would settle on some plan of action; watchers would be 
sent out not only to keep an eye on the deer but on the 



80 r A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

keepers too. Much depended on the state of the weather 
and the moon, as some light was necessary; then, when 
the conditions were favourable and the keepers had been 
watched to their cottages, the gang would go out for a 
night's hunting. But it was a dangerous sport, as the 
keepers also knew that deer were out of bounds, and 
they would form some counter-plan, and one peculiarly 
nasty plan they had was to go out about three of four 
o'clock in the morning and secrete themselves somewhere 
close to the village to intercept the poachers on their 
return. 

Bawcombe, who never in his life associated with the 
village idlers and frequenters of the ale-house, had no 
connexion with these men. His expeditions were made 
alone on some dark, unpromising night, when the regular 
poachers were in bed and asleep. He would steal away 
after bedtime, or would go out ostensibly to look after the 
sheep, and, if fortunate, would return in the small hours 
with a deer on his back. Then, helped by his mother, 
with whom he lived ( for this was when he was a young 
unmarried man, about 1820), he would quickly skin and 
cut up the carcass, stow the meat away in some secret 
place, and bury the head, hide, and offal deep in the earth ; 
and when morning came it would find Isaac out following 
his flock as usual, with no trace of guilt or fatigue in his 
rosy cheeks and clear, honest eyes. 

This was a very astonishing story to hear from Caleb, 
but to suspect him of inventing or of exaggerating was 
impossible to anyone who knew him. And we have seen 
that Isaac Bawcombe was an exceptional man — physically 
a kind of Alexander Selkirk of the Wiltshire Downs. 



SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE 81 

And he, moreover, had a dog to help him — one as superior 
in speed and strength to the ordinary sheep-dog as he him- 
self was to the ruck of his fellow-men. It was only after 
much questioning on my part that Caleb brought himself 
to tell me of these ancient adventures, and finally to give 
a detailed account of how his father came to take his 
first deer. It was in the depth of winter — bitterly cold, 
with a strong north wind blowing on the snow-covered 
downs — when one evening Isaac caught sight of two deer 
out on his sheep-walk. In that part of Wiltshire there is 
a famous monument of antiquity, a vast mound-like wall, 
with a deep depression or fosse running at its side. Now 
it happened that on the highest part of the down, where 
the wall or mound was most exposed to the blast, the snow 
had been blown clean off the top, and the deer were feed- 
ing here on the short turf, keeping to the ridge, so that, 
outlined against the sky, they had become visible to Isaac 
at a great distance. 

He saw and pondered. These deer, just now, while 
out of bonds, were no man's property, and it would be no 
sin to kill and eat one — if he could catch it! — and it was 
a season of bitter want. For many many days he had 
eaten his barley bread, and on some days barley-flour 
dumplings, and had been content with this poor fare ; but 
now the sight of these animals made him crave for meat 
with an intolerable craving, and he determined to do some- 
thing to satisfy it. 

He went home and had his poor supper, and when it 
was dark set forth again with his dog. He found the 
deer still feeding on the mound. Stealing softly along 
among the furze-bushes, he got the black line of the 



82 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

mound against the starry sky, and by and by, as he moved 
along, the black figures of the deer, with their heads down, 
came into view. He then doubled back and, proceeding 
some distance, got down into the fosse and stole forward 
to them again under the wall. His idea was that on taking 
alarm they would immediately make for the forest which 
was their home, and would probably pass near him. They 
did not hear him until he was within sixty yards, and 
then bounded down from the wall, over the dyke, and 
away, but in almost opposite directions — one alone mak- 
ing for the forest ; and on this one the dog was set. Out 
he shot like an arrow from the bow, and after him ran 
Isaac "as he had never runned afore in all his life". For 
a short space deer and dog in hot pursuit were visible on 
the snow, then the darkness swallowed them up as they 
rushed down the slope; but in less than half a minute 
a sound came back to Isaac, flying, too, down the incline 
— the long, wailing cry of a deer in distress. The dog had 
seized his quarry by one of the front legs, a little above the 
hoof, and held it fast, and they were struggling on the 
snow when Isaac came up and flung himself upon his 
victim, then thrust his knife through its windpipe "to 
stop its noise". Having killed it, he threw it on his back 
and went home, not by the turnpike, nor by any road or 
path, but over fields and through copses until he got to 
the back of his mother's cottage. There was no door on 
that side, but there was a window, and when he had 
rapped at it and his mother opened it, without speaking a 
word he thrust the dead deer through, then made his way 
round to the front. 

That was how he killed his first deer. How the others 
were taken I do not know; I wish I did, since this one 



SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE 83 

exploit of a Wiltshire shepherd has more interest for me 
than I find in fifty narratives of elephants slaughtered 
wholesale with explosive bullets, written for the delight 
and astonishment of the reading public by our most 
glorious Nimrods. 




CHAPTER VII 
The Deer-Stealers 

Deer-stealing on Salisbury Plain — The head-keeper Har- 
butt — Strange story of a baby — Found as a surname 
— John Barter, the village carpenter — How the 
keeper was fooled — A poaching attack planned — 
The fight — Head-keeper and carpenter — The car- 
penter hides his son — The arrest — Barter's sons for- 
sake the village 

There were other memories of deer-taking handed down 
to Caleb by his parents, and the one best worth preserving 
relates to the head-keeper of the preserves, or chase, and 
to a great fight in which he was engaged with two brothers 
of the girl who was afterwards to be Isaac's wife. 

Here it may be necessary to explain that formerly the 
owner of Cranbourne Chase, at that time Lord Rivers, 
claimed the deer and the right to preserve and hunt over 
a considerable extent of country outside of his own lands. 

84 



THE DEER-STEALERS 85 

On the Wiltshire side these rights extended from Cran- 
bourne Chase over the South Wiltshire Downs to Salis- 
bury, and the whole territory, about thirty miles broad, 
was divided into beats or walks, six or eight in number, 
each beat provided with a keeper's lodge. This state of 
things continued to the year 1834, when the chase was 
"disfranchised" by Act of Parliament. 

The incident I am going to relate occurred about 1815 
or perhaps two or three years later. The border of one 
of the deer walks was at a spot known as Three Downs 
Place, two miles and a half from Winterbourne Bishop. 
Here in a hollow of the downs there was an extensive 
wood, and just within the wood a large stone house, said 
to be centuries old but long pulled down, called Rollston 
House, in which the head-keeper lived with two under- 
keepers. He had a wife but no children, and was a 
middle-aged, thick-set, very dark man, powerful and 
vigilant, a "tarrable" hater and persecutor of poachers, 
feared and hated by them in turn, and his name was 
Harbutt. 

It happened that one morning, when he had unbarred 
the front door to go out, he found a great difficulty in 
opening it, caused by a heavy object having been fastened 
to the door-handle. It proved to be a basket or box, in 
which a well-nourished, nice-looking boy baby was sleep- 
ing, well wrapped up and covered with a cloth. On the 
cloth a scrap of paper was pinned with the following lines 
written on it: 

Take me in and treat me well, 

For in this house my father dwell. 

Harbutt read the lines and didn't even smile at the gram- 
mar; on the contrary, he appeared very much upset, and 



86 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



was still standing holding the paper, staring stupidly at 
it, when his wife came on the scene. "What be this?" 
she exclaimed, and looked first at the paper, then at him, 
then at the rosy child fast asleep in its cradle; and in- 
stantly, with a great cry, she fell on it and snatched it 
up in her arms, and holding it clasped to her bosom, began 
lavishing caresses and endearing expressions on it, tears 




of rapture in her eyes! Not one word of inquiry or 
bitter, jealous reproach — all that part of her was swal- 
lowed up and annihilated in the joy of a woman who had 
been denied a child of her own to love and nourish and 
worship. And now one had come to her and it mattered 
little how. Two or three days later the infant was 
baptized at the village church with the quaint name of 
Moses Found. 

Caleb was a little surprised at my thinking it a laugh- 
able name. It was to his mind a singularly appropriate 
one ; he assured me it was not the only case he knew of 



THE DEER-STEALERS 87 

in which the surname Found had been bestowed on a child 
of unknown parentage, and he told me the story of one of 
the Founds who had gone to Salisbury as a boy and 
worked and saved and eventually become quite a prosper- 
ous and important person. There was really nothing 
funny in it. 

The story of Moses Found had been told him by his 
old mother ; she, he remarked significantly, had good cause 
to remember it. She was herself a native of the village, 
born two or three years later than the mysterious Moses ; 
her father, John Barter by name, was a carpenter and 
lived in an old, thatched house which still exists and is 
very familiar to me. He had five sons; then, after an 
interval of some years, a daughter was born, who in due 
time was to be Isaac's wife. When she was a little girl 
her brothers were all grown up or on the verge of man- 
hood, and Moses, too, was a young man — "the spit of his 
father," people said, meaning the head-keeper — and he 
was now one of Harbutt's under-keepers. 

About this time some of the more ardent spirits in the 
village, not satisfied with an occasional hunt when a deer 
broke out and roamed over the downs, took to poaching 
them in the woods. One night, a hunt having been ar- 
ranged, one of the most daring of the men secreted him- 
self close to the keeper's house, and having watched the 
keepers go in and the light put out, he actually succeeded 
in fastening up the doors from the outside with screws 
and pieces of wood without creating an alarm. He then 
met his confederates at an agreed spot and the hunting 
began, during which one deer was chased to the house and 
actually pulled down and killed on the lawn. 

Meanwhile the inmates were in a state of great excite- 



88 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

ment; the under-keepers feared that a force it would be 
dangerous to oppose had taken possession of the woods, 
while Harbutt raved and roared like a maddened wild 
beast in a cage, and put forth all his strength to pull the 
doors open. Finally he smashed a window and leaped out, 
gun in hand, and calling the others to follow rushed into 
the wood. But he was too late ; the hunt was over and 
the poachers had made good their escape, taking the 
carcasses of two or three deer they had succeeded in 
killing. 

The keeper was not to be fooled in the same way a 
second time, and before very long he had his revenge. 
A fresh raid was planned, and on this occasion two of 
the five brothers were in it, and there were four more, 
the blacksmith of Winterbourne Bishop, their best man, 
two famous shearers, father and son, from a neighbouring 
village, and a young farm labourer. 

They knew very well that with the head-keeper in his 
present frame of mind it was a risky affair, and they 
made a solemn compact that if caught they would stand 
by one another to the end. And caught they were, and 
on this occasion the keepers were four. 

At the very beginning the blacksmith, their ablest man 
and virtual leader, was knocked down senseless with a 
blow on his head with the butt end of a gun. Immediately 
on seeing this the two famous shearers took to their heels 
and the young labourer followed their example. The 
brothers were left but refused to be taken, although 
Harbutt roared at them in his bull's voice that he would 
shoot them unless they surrendered. They made light 
of his threats and fought against the four, and eventually 
were separated. By and by the younger of the two was 



THE DEER-STEALERS 89 

driven into a brambly thicket where his opponents im- 
agined that it would be impossible for him to escape. But 
he was a youth of indomitable spirit, strong and agile as 
a wild cat ; and returning blow for blow he succeeded in 
tearing himself from them, then after a running fight 
through the darkest part of the wood for a distance of 
two or three hundred yards they at length lost him or 
gave him up and went back to assist Harbutt and Moses 
against the other man. Left to himself he got out of the 
wood and made his way back to the village. It was long 
past midnight when he turned up at his father's cottage, a 
pitiable object covered with mud and blood, hatless, his 
clothes torn to shreds, his face and whole body covered 
with bruises and bleeding wounds. 

The old man was in a great state of distress about his 
other son, and early in the morning went to examine the 
ground where the fight had been. It was only too easily 
found; the sod was trampled down and branches broken 
as though a score of men had been engaged. Then he 
found his eldest son's cap, and a little farther away a 
sleeve of his coat; shreds and rags were numerous on the 
bramble bushes, and by and by he came on a pool of 
blood. "They've kill 'n!" he cried in despair, "they've 
killed my poor boy !" and straight to Rollston House he 
went to inquire, and was met by Harbutt himself, who 
came out limping, one boot on, the other foot bound up 
with rags, one arm in a sling and a cloth tied round his 
head. He was told that his son was alive and safe indoors 
and that he would be taken to Salisbury later in the day. 
"His clothes be all torn to pieces," added the keeper. 
"You can just go home at once and git him others before 
the constable comes to take him." 



90 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

"You've tored them to pieces yourself and you can 
git him others," retorted the old man in a rage. 

"Very well," said the keeper. "But bide a moment — 
I've something more to say to you. When your son 
comes out of jail in a year or so you tell him from me 
that if he'll just step up this way I'll give him five shillings 
and as much beer as he likes to drink. I never see'd a 
better fighter!" 

It was a great compliment to his son, but the old man 
was troubled in his mind. "What dost mean, keeper, by 
a year or so ?" he asked. 

"When I said that," returned the other with a grin, 
"I was just thinking what 'twould be he deserves to git." 

"And you'd agot your deserts, by God," cried the angry 
father, "if that boy of mine hadn't a-been left alone to 
fight ye!" 

Harbutt regarded him with a smile of gratified malice. 
"You can go home now," he said. "If you'd see your son 
you'll find 'n in Salisbury jail. Maybe you'll be wanting 
new locks on your doors; you can git they in Salisbury 
too — you've no blacksmith in your village now. No, your 
boy weren't alone and you know that damned well." 

*"I know naught about that," he returned, and started 
to walk home with a heavy heart. Until now he had been 
clinging to the hope that the other son had not been 
identified in the dark wood. And now what could he do 
to save one of the two from hateful imprisonment? The 
boy was not in a fit condition to make his escape ; he could 
hardly get across the room and could not sit or lie down 
without groaning. He could only try to hide him in the 
cottage and pray that they would not discover him. The 
cottage was in the middle of the village and had but little 



THE DEER-STEALERS 91 

ground to it, but there was a small, boarded-up cavity or 
cell at one end of an attic, and it might be possible to 
save him by putting him in there. Here, then, in a bed 
placed for him on the floor, his bruised son was obliged 
to lie, in the close, dark hole, for some days. 

One day, about a week later, when he was recovering 
from his hurts, he crawled out of his box and climbed 
down the narrow stairs to the ground floor to see the light 
and breathe a better air for a short time, and while down 
he was tempted to take a peep at the street through the 
small, latticed window. But he quickly withdrew his 
head and by and by said to his father, "I'm feared Moses 
has seen me. Just now when I was at the window he came 
by and looked up and see'd me with my head all tied up, 
and I'm feared he knew 'twas I." 

After that they could only wait in fear and trembling, 
and on the next day quite early there came a loud rap at 
the door, and on its»being opened by the old man the con- 
stable and two keepers appeared standing before him. 

"I've come to take your son," said the constable. 

The old man stepped back without a word and took 
down his gun from its place on the wall, then spoke: "If 
you've got a search-warrant you may come in; if you 
haven't got'n I'll blow the brains out of the first man 
that puts a foot inside my door". 

They hesitated a few moments then silently withdrew. 
After consulting together the constable went off to the 
nearest magistrate, leaving the two keepers to keep watch 
on the house: Moses Found was one of them. Later in 
the day the constable returned armed with a warrant and 
was thereupon admitted, with the result that the poor 
youth was soon discovered in his hiding-place and carried 



92 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

off. And that was the last he saw of his home, his 
young sister crying bitterly and his old father white and 
trembling with grief and impotent rage. 

A month or two later the two brothers were tried and 
sentenced each to six months' imprisonment. They never 
came home. On their release they went to Woolwich, 
where men were wanted and the pay was good. And by 
and by the accounts they sent home induced first one then 
the other brother to go and join them, and the poor old 
father, who had been very proud of his five sons, was left 
alone with his young daughter — Isaac's destined wife. 



: *33«?S*Z* 




Gori*i.DoT* a> -oa Bourne 



CHAPTER VIII 
Shepherds and Poaching 

General remarks on poaching — Farmer, shepherd, and 
dog — A sheep-dog that would not hunt — Taking a 
partridge from a hawk — Old Gaarge and Young 
Gaarge — Partridge-poaching — The shepherd robbed 
of his rabbits — Wisdom of Shepherd Gathergood — 
Hare-trapping on the down — Hare-taking with a 
crook 

When Caleb was at length free from his father's tutelage, 
and as an under-shepherd practically independent, he did 
not follow Isaac's strict example with regard to wild 
animals, good for the pot, which came by chance in his 
way ; he even allowed himself to go a little out of his way 
on occasion to get them. 

We know that about this matter the law of the land 
does not square with the moral law as it is written in the 
heart of the peasant. A wounded partridge or other bird 
which he finds in his walks abroad or which comes by 

93 



94 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

chance to him is his by a natural right, and he will take 
and eat or dispose of it without scruple. With rabbits 
he is very free — he doesn't wait to find a distressed one 
with a stoat on its track — stoats are not sufficiently abun- 
dant ; and a hare, too, may be picked up at any moment ; 
only in this case he must be very sure that no one is 
looking. Knowing the law, and being perhaps a respect- 
able, religious person, he is anxious to abstain from all 
appearance of evil. This taking a hare or rabbit or 
wounded partridge is in his mind a very different thing 
from systematic poaching; but he is aware that to the 
classes above him it is not so — the law has made them one. 
It is a hard, arbitrary, unnatural law, made by and for 
them, his betters, and outwardly he must conform to it. 
Thus you will find the best of men among the shepherds 
and labourers freely helping themselves to any wild 
creature that falls in their way, yet sharing the game- 
preserver's hatred of the real poacher. The village 
poacher as a rule is an idle, dissolute fellow, and the sober, 
industrious, righteous shepherd or ploughman or carter 
does not like to be put on a level with such a person. But 
there is no escape from the hard and fast rule in such 
things, and however open and truthful he may be in every- 
thing else, in this one matter he is obliged to practise a 
certain amount of deception. Here is a case to serve as 
an illustration ; I have only just heard it, after putting to- 
gether the material I had collected for this chapter, in 
conversation with an old shepherd friend of mine. 

He is a fine old man who has followed a flock these 
fifty years, and will, I have no doubt, carry his crook 
for yet another ten. Not only is he a "good shepherd," 
in the sense in which Caleb uses that phrase, with a more 



SHEPHERDS AND POACHING 95 

intimate knowledge of sheep and all the ailments they are 
subject to than I have found in any other, but he is also 
a truly religious man, one that "walks with God". He 
told me this story of a sheep-dog he owned when head- 
shepherd on a large farm on the Dorsetshire border with 
a master whose chief delight in life was in coursing hares. 
They abounded on his land, and he naturally wanted the 
men employed on the farm to regard them as sacred ani- 
mals. One day he came out to the shepherd to complain 
that some one had seen his dog hunting a hare. 

The shepherd indignantly asked who had said such a 
thing. 

"Never mind about that," said the farmer. "Is it 
true?" 

"It is a lie," said the shepherd. "My dog never hunts 
a hare or anything else. 'Tis my belief the one that said 
that has got a dog himself that hunts the hares and he 
wants to put the blame on some one else." 

"May be so," said the farmer, unconvinced. 

Just then a hare made its appearance, coming across the 
field directly towards them, and either because they never 
moved or it did not smell them it came on and on, stopping 
at intervals to sit for a minute or so on its haunches, then 
on again until it was within forty yards of where they 
were standing. The farmer watched it approach and at 
the same time kept an eye on the dog sitting at their feet 
and watching the hare too, very steadily. "Now, shep- 
herd," said the farmer, "don't you say one word to the 
dog and I'll see for myself." Not a word did he say, and 
the hare came and sat for some seconds near them, then 
limped away out of sight, and the dog made not the 
slightest movement, "That's all right," said the farmer, 



96 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

well pleased. "I know now 'twas a lie I heard about 
your dog. I've seen for myself and I'll just keep a sharp 
eye on the man that told me." 

My comment on this story was that the farmer had dis- 
played an almost incredible ignorance of a sheep-dog — 
and a shepherd. "How would it have been if you had 
said, 'Catch him, Bob,' or whatever his name was?" I 
asked. 

He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and replied, 
"I do b'lieve he'd ha' got 'n, but he'd never move till I 
told 'n'\ 

It comes to this: the shepherd refuses to believe thai by 
taking a hare he is robbing any man of his property, and 
if he is obliged to tell a lie to save himself from the con- 
sequences he does not consider that it is a lie. 

When he understood that I was on his side in this 
question, he told me about a good sheep-dog he once 
possessed which he had to get rid of because he would not 
take a hare! 

A dog when broken is made to distinguish between the 
things he must and must not do. He is "feelingly per- 
suaded" by kind words and caresses in one case and hard 
words and hard blows in the other. He learns that if he 
hunts hares and rabbits it will be very bad for him, and 
in due time, after some suffering, he is able to overcome 
this strongest instinct of a dog. He acquires an artificial 
conscience. Then, when his education is finished, he 
must be made to understand that it is not quite finished 
after all — that he must partially unlearn one of the saddest 
of the lessons instilled in him. He must hunt a hare or 
rabbit when told by his master to do so. It is a compact 
between man and dog. Thus, they have got a law which 



SHEPHERDS AND POACHING 97 

the dog has sworn to obey; but the man who made it is 
above the law and can when he thinks proper command 
his servant to break it. The dog, as a rule, takes it all in 
very readily and often allows himself more liberty than 
his master gives him; the most highly accomplished ani- 
mal is one that, like my shepherd's dog in the former in- 
stance, will not stir till he is told. In the other case the 
poor brute could not rise to the position ; it was too com- 
plex for him, and when ordered to catch a rabbit he could 
only put his tail between his legs and look in a puzzled 
way at his master. "Why do you tell me to do a thing 
for which I shall be thrashed ?" 

It was only after Caleb had known me some time, when 
we were fast friends, that he talked with perfect freedom 
of these things and told me of his own small, illicit takings 
without excuse or explanation. 

One day he saw a sparrowhawk dash down upon a 
running partridge and struggle with it on the ground. It 
was in a grass field, divided from the one he was walking 
in by a large, unkept hedge without a gap in it to let him 
through. Presently the hawk rose up with the partridge 
still violently struggling in its talons, and flew over the 
hedge to Caleb's side, but was no sooner over than it came 
down again and the struggle went on once more on the 
ground. On Caleb running to the spot the hawk flew off, 
leaving his prey behind. He had grasped it in its sides, 
driving his sharp claws well in, and the partridge, though 
unable to fly, was still alive. The shepherd killed it and 
put it in his pocket, and enjoyed it very much when he 
came to eat it. 

From this case, a most innocent form of poaching, he 
went on to relate how he had once been able to deprive a 



98 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



cunning poacher and a bad man, a human sparrowhawk, 
of his quarry. 

There were two persons in the village, father and son, 
he very heartily detested, known respectively as Old 
Gaarge and Young Gaarge, inveterate poachers both. 
They were worse than the real reprobate who haunted the 



j . __ . . ... .■, 




SHEPHERDS *ND THEIR DOQS 



public-house and did no work and was not ashamed of his 
evil ways, for these two were hypocrites and were out- 
wardly sober, righteous men, who kept themselves a 
little apart from their neighbours and were very severe in 
their condemnation of other people's faults. 

One Sunday morning Caleb was on his way to his ewes 
folded at a distance from the village, walking by a hedge- 
row at the foot of the down, when he heard a shot fired 
some way ahead, and after a minute or two a second shot. 



SHEPHERDS [AND POACHING 99 

This greatly excited his curiosity and caused him to keep 
a sharp look-out in the direction the sounds had come 
from, and by and by he caught sight of a man walking 
towards him. It was Old Gaarge in his long smock-frock, 
proceeding in a leisurely way towards the village, but 
catching sight of the shepherd he turned aside through a 
gap in the hedge and went off in another direction to avoid 
meeting him. No doubt, thought Caleb, he has got his 
gun in two pieces hidden under his smock. He went on 
until he came to a small field of oats which had grown 
badly and had only been half reaped, and here he dis- 
covered that Old Gaarge had been lying in hiding to shoot 
at the partridges that came to feed. He had been screened 
from the sight of the birds by a couple of hurdles and 
some straw, and there were feathers of the birds he had 
shot scattered about. He had finished his Sunday morn- 
ing's sport and was going back, a little too late on this 
occasion as it turned out. 

Caleb went on to his flock, but before getting to it his 
dog discovered a dead partridge in the hedge ; it had flown 
that far and then dropped, and there was fresh blood on 
its feathers. He put it in his pocket and carried it about 
most of the day while with his sheep on the down. Late 
in the afternoon he spied two magpies pecking at some- 
thing out in the middle of a field and went to see what 
they had found. It was a second partridge which Old 
Gaarge had shot in the morning and had lost, the bird 
having flown to some ' distance before dropping. The 
magpies had probably found it already dead, as it was 
cold ; they had begun tearing the skin at the neck and had 
opened it down to the breast-bone. Caleb took this bird, 
too, and by and by, sitting down to examine it, he thought 



100 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

he would try to mend the torn skin with the needle and 
thread he always carried inside his cap. He succeeded in 
stitching it neatly up, and putting back the feathers in their 
place the rent was quite concealed. That evening he took 
the two birds to a man in the village who made a liveli- 
hood by collecting bones, rags, and things of that kind; 
the man took the birds in his hand, held them up, felt 
their weight, examined them carefully, and pronounced 
them to be two good, fat birds, and agreed to pay two 
shillings for them. 

Such a man may be found in most villages; he calls 
himself a "general dealer," and keeps a trap and pony — 
in some cases he keeps the ale-house — and is a useful 
member of the small, rural community — a sort of human 
carrion-crow. 

The two shillings were very welcome, but more than the 
money was the pleasing thought that he had got the birds 
shot by the hypocritical old poacher for his own profit. 
Caleb had good cause to hate him. He, Caleb, was one 
of the shepherds who had his master's permission to take 
rabbits on the land, and having found his snares broken 
on many occasions he came to the conclusion that they 
were visited in the night time by some very cunning per- 
son who kept a watch on his movements. One evening he 
set five snares in a turnip field and went just before day- 
light next morning in a dense fog to visit them. Every 
one was broken ! He had just started on his way back, 
feeling angry and much puzzled at such a thing, when the 
fog at once passed away and revealed the figures of two 
men walking hurriedly off over the down. They were at 
a considerable distance, but the light was now strong 
enough to enable him to identify Old Gaarge and Young 



SHEPHERDS AND POACHING 10t 

Gaarge. In a few moments they vanished over the brow. 
Caleb was mad at being deprived of his rabbits in this 
mean way, but pleased at the same time in having discov- 
ered who the culprits were; but what to do about it he 
did not know. 

On the following day he was with his flock on the down 
and found himself near another shepherd, also with his 
sheep, one he knew very well, a quiet but knowing old 
man named Joseph Gathergood. He was known to be a 
skilful rabbit-catcher, and Caleb thought he would go 
over to him and tell him about how he was being tricked 
by the two Gaarges and ask him what to do in the matter. 

The old man was very friendly and at once told him 
what to do. "Don't you set no more snares by the hedges 
and in the turmots," he said. "Set them out on the open 
down where no one would go after rabbits and they'll 
not find the snares." And this was how it had to be done. 
First he was to scrape the ground with the heel of his 
boot until the fresh earth could be seen through the broken 
turf; then he was to sprinkle a little rabbit scent on the 
scraped spot, and plant his snare. The scent and smell of 
the fresh earth combined would draw the rabbits to the 
spot ; they would go there to scratch and would inevitably 
get caught if the snare was properly placed. 

Caleb tried this plan with one snare, and on the follow- 
ing morning found that he had a rabbit. He set it again 
that evening, then again, until he had caught five rabbits 
on five consecutive nights, all with the same snare. That 
convinced him that he had been taught a valuable lesson 
and that old Gathergood was a very wise man about 
rabbits ; and he was very happy to think that he had got 
the better of his two sneaking enemies. 



102 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

But Shepherd Gathergood was just as wise about hares, 
and, as in the other case, he took them out on the down in 
the most open places. His success was due to his knowl- 
edge of the hare's taste for blackthorn twigs. He would 
take a good, strong blackthorn stem or shoot with twigs 
on it, and stick it firmly down in the middle of a large 
grass field or on the open down, and place the steel trap 
tied to the stick at a distance of a foot or so from it, the 
trap concealed under grass or moss and dead leaves. The 
smell of the blackthorn would draw the hare to the spot, 
and he would move round and round nibbling the twigs 
until caught. 

Caleb never tried this plan, but was convinced that 
Gathergood was right about it. 

He told me of another shepherd who was clever at 
taking hares in another way, and who was often chaffed 
by his acquaintances on account of the extraordinary 
length of his shepherd's crook. It was like a lance or 
pole, being twice the usual length. But he had a use for it. 
This shepherd used to make hares' forms on the downs in 
all suitable places, forming them so cunningly that no one 
seeing them by chance would have believed they were the 
work of human hands. The hares certainly made use of 
them. When out with his flock he would visit these forms, 
walking quietly past them at a distance of twenty to 
thirty feet, his dog following at his heels. On catching 
sight of a hare crouching in a form he would drop a word, 
and the dog would instantly stand still and remain fixed 
and motionless, while the shepherd went on but in a circle 
so as gradually to approach the form. Meanwhile the 
hare would keep his eyes fixed on the dog, paying no at- 
tention to the man, until by and by the long staff would 



SHEPHERDS AND POACHING 103 

be swung round and a blow descend on the poor, silly 
head from the opposite side, and if the blow was not 
powerful enough to stun or disable the hare, the dog 
would have it before it got many yards from the cosy nest 
prepared for its destruction. 




CHAPTER IX 
The Shepherd on Foxes 

A fox-trapping shepherd — Gamekeepers and foxes — Fox 
and stoat — A gamekeeper off his guard — Pheasants 
and foxes — Caleb kills a fox — A fox-hunting sheep- 
dog — Two varieties of foxes — Rabbits playing with 
little foxes — How to expel foxes — A playful spirit 
in the fox — Fox-hunting a danger to sheep 

Caleb related that his friend Shepherd Gathergood was 
a great fox-killer and, as with hares, he took them in a 
way of his own. He said that the fox will always go to 
a heap of ashes in any open place, and his plan was to 
place a steel trap concealed among the ashes, made fast to 
a stick about three feet high, firmly planted in the middle 
of the heap, with a piece of strong-smelling cheese tied to 
the top. The two attractions of an ash-heap and the smell 
of strong cheese was more than any fox could resist. 
When he caught a fox he killed and buried it on the down 

104 



THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES 105 

and said "nothing to nobody" about it. He killed them to 
protect himself from their depredations; foxes, like Old 
Gaarge and his son in Caleb's case, went around at night 
to rob him of the rabbits he took in his snares. 

Caleb never blamed him for this; on the contrary, he 
greatly admired him for his courage, seeing that if it had 
been found out he would have been a marked man. It 
was perhaps intelligence or cunning rather than courage ; 
he did not believe that he would be found out, and he never 
was; he told Caleb of these things because he was sure 
of his man. Those who were interested in the hunt never 
suspected him, and as to gamekeepers, they hardly 
counted. He was helping them ; no one hates a fox more 
than they do. The farmer gets compensation for damage, 
and the hen-wife is paid for her stolen chickens by the 
hunt. The keeper is required to look after the game, 
and at the same time to spare his chief enemy, the fox. 
Indeed, the keeper's state of mind with regard to foxes 
has always been a source of amusement to me, and by 
long practice I am able to talk to him on that delicate sub- 
ject in a way to make him uncomfortable and self-contra- 
dictory. There are various, quite innocent questions 
which the student of wild life may put to a keeper about 
foxes which have a disturbing effect on his brain. How 
to expel foxes from a covert, for example; and here is 
another: Is it true that the fox listens for the distressed 
cries of a rabbit pursued by a stoat and that he will de- 
prive the stoat of his captive? Perhaps ; Yes ; No, I don't 
think so, because one hunts by night, the other by day, 
he will answer, but you see that the question troubles him. 
One keeper, off his guard, promptly answered, "I've no 
doubt of it ; I can always bring a fox to me by imitating 



106 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

the cry of a rabbit hunted by a stoat." But he did not 
say what his object was in attracting the fox. 

I say that the keeper was off his guard in this instance, 
because the fiction that foxes were preserved on the estate 
was kept up, though as a fact they were systematically 
destroyed by the keepers. As the pheasant-breeding craze 
appears to increase rather than diminish, notwithstanding 
the disastrous effect it has had in alienating the people 
from their lords and masters, the conflict of interest be- 
tween fox-hunter and pheasant-breeder will tend to be- 
come more and more acute, and the probable end will be 
that fox-hunting will have to go. A melancholy outlook 
to those who love the country and old country sports, and 
who do not regard pheasant-shooting as now followed as 
sport at all. It is a delusion of the landlords that the 
country people think most highly of the great pheasant- 
preserver who has two or three big shoots in a season, 
during which vast numbers of birds are slaughtered — 
every bird "costing a guinea," as the saying is. It brings 
money into the country, he or his apologist tells you, and 
provides employment for the village poor in October and 
November, when there is little doing. He does not know 
the truth of the matter. A certain number of the poorer 
people of the village are employed as beaters for the big 
shoots at a shilling a day or so, and occasionally a la- 
bourer, going to or from his work, finds a pheasant's nest 
and informs the keeper and receives some slight reward. 
If he "keeps his eyes open" and shows himself anxious 
at all times to serve the keeper he will sometimes get a 
rabbit for his Sunday dinner. 

This is not a sufficient return for the freedom to walk 
on the land and in woods, which the villager possessed 



THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES 107 

formerly, even in his worst days of his oppression, a 
liberty which has now been taken from him. The keeper 
is there now to prevent him; he was there before, and 
from of old, but the pheasant was not yet a sacred bird, 
and it didn't matter that a man walked on the turf or 
picked up a few fallen sticks in a wood. The keeper is 
there to tell him to keep to the road and sometimes to ask 
him, even when he is on the road, what is he looking over 
the hedge for. He slinks obediently away; he is only a 










Bos combe <w w. bourne 



poor labourer with his living to get, and he cannot afford 
to offend the man who stands between him and the lord 
and the lord's tenant. And he is inarticulate; but the 
insolence and injustice rankle in his heart, for he is not 
altogether a helot in soul ; and the result is that the sedi- 
tion-mongers, the Socialists, the furious denouncers of all 
landlords, who are now quartering the country, and whose 
vans I meet in the remotest villages, are listened to, and 
their words — wild and whirling words they may be — are 
sinking into the hearts of the agricultural labourers of 
the new generation. 

To return to foxes and gamekeepers. There are other 



108 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

estates where the fiction of fox-preserving is kept up 
no longer, where it is notorious that the landlord is 
devoted exclusively to the gun and to pheasant-breeding. 
On one of the big estates I am familiar with in Wiltshire 
the keepers openly say they will not suffer a fox, and 
every villager knows it and will give information of a 
fox to the keepers, and looks to be rewarded with a 
rabbit. All this is undoubtedly known to the lord of the 
manor ; his servants are only carrying out his own wishes, 
although he still subscribes to the hunt and occasionally 
attends the meet. The entire hunt may unite in cursing 
him, but they must do so below their breath; it would 
have a disastrous effect to spread it abroad that he is 
a persecutor of foxes. 

Caleb disliked foxes, too, but not to the extent of 
killing them. He did once actually kill one, when a 
young under-shepherd, but it was accident rather than 
intention. 

One day he found a small gap in a hedge, which had 
been made or was being used by a hare, and, thinking 
to take it, he set a trap at the spot, tying it securely to 
a root and covering it over with dead leaves. On going 
to the place the next morning he could see nothing until 
his feet were on the very edge of the ditch, when with 
startling suddenness a big dog fox sprang up at him 
with a savage snarl. It was caught by a hind-leg, and 
had been lying concealed among the dead leaves close 
under the bank. Caleb, angered at finding a fox when 
he had looked for a hare, and at the attack the creature 
had made on him, dealt it a blow on the head with his 
heavy stick — just one blow given on the impulse of the 
moment, but it killed the fox ! He felt very bad at what 



THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES 109 

he had done and began to think of consequences. He 
took it from the trap and hid it away under the dead 
leaves beneath the hedge some yards from the gap, and 
then went to his work. During the day one of the farm 
hands went out to speak to him. He was a small, quiet 
old man, a discreet friend, and Caleb confided to him 
what he had done. "Leave it to me," said his old friend, 
and went back to the farm. In the afternoon Caleb was 
standing on the top of the down looking towards the 
village, when he spied at a great distance the old man 
coming out to the hills, and by and by he could make out 
that he had a sack on his back and a spade in his hand. 
When half-way up the side of the hill he put his burden 
down and set to work digging a deep pit. Into this he 
put the dead fox, and threw in and trod down the earth, 
then carefully put back the turf in its place, then, his 
task done, shouldered the spade and departed. Caleb 
felt greatly relieved, for now the fox was buried out on 
the downs, and no one would ever know that he had 
wickedly killed it. 

Subsequently he had other foxes caught in traps set 
for hares, but was always able to release them. About 
one he had the following story. The dog he had at that 
time, named Monk, hated foxes as Jack hated adders, and 
would hunt them savagely whenever he got a chance. 
One morning Caleb visited a trap he had set in a gap 
in a hedge and found a fox in it. The fox jumped up, 
snarling and displaying his teeth, ready to fight for dear 
life, and it was hard to restrain Monk from flying at 
him. So excited was he that only when his master 
threatened him with his crook did he draw back and, 
sitting on his haunches, left him to deal with the difficult 



110 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

business in his own way. The difficulty was to open 
the steel trap without putting himself in the way of a 
bito from those "tarrable sharp teeth." After a good 
deal of manoeuvring he managed to set the butt end 
of his crook on the handle of the gin, and forcing it 
down until the iron teeth relaxed their grip, the fox 
pulled his foot out, and darting away along the hedge 
side vanished into the adjoining copse. Away went 
Monk after him, in spite of his master's angry com- 
mands to him to come back, and fox and dog disappeared 
almost together among the trees. Sounds of yelping and 
of crashing through the undergrowth came back fainter 
and fainter, and then there was silence. Caleb waited 
at the spot full twenty minutes before the disobedient 
dog came back, looking very pleased. He had probably 
succeeded in overtaking and killing his enemy. 

About that same Monk a sad story will have to be 
told in another chapter. 

When speaking of foxes Caleb aways maintained that 
in his part of the country there were two sorts: one small 
and very red, the larger one of a lighter colour with 
some grey in it. And it is possible that the hill foxes 
differed somewhat in size and colour from those of the 
lower country. He related that one year two vixens 
littered at one spot, a deep bottom among the downs, so 
near together that when the cubs were big enough to 
come out they mixed and played in company ; the vixens 
happened to be of the different sorts, and the difference 
in colour appeared in the little ones as well. 

Caleb was so taken with the pretty sight of all these 
little foxes, neighbours and playmates, that he went even- 
ing after evening to sit for an hour or longer watching 



THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES 111 

them. One thing he witnessed which will perhaps be 
disbelieved by those who have not closely observed ani- 
mals for themselves, and who still hold to the fable that 
all wild creatures are born with an inherited and instinc- 
tive knowledge and dread of their enemies. Rabbits 
swarmed at that spot, and he observed that when the old 
foxes were not about, the young, half-grown rabbits 




HUWH.E ziNft 



would freely mix and play with the little foxes. He was so 
surprised at this, never having heard of such a thing, 
that he told his master of it, and the farmer went with 
him on a moonlight night and the two sat for a long time 
together, and saw rabbits and foxes playing, pursuing 
one another round and round, the rabbits when pursued 
often turning very suddenly and jumping clean over their 
pursuer. 

The rabbits at this place belonged to the tenant, and 



112 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

the farmer, after enjoying the sight of the little ones 
playing together, determined to get rid of the foxes in 
the usual way by exploding a small quantity of gun- 
powder in the burrows. Four old foxes with nine cubs 
were too many for him to have. The powder was duly 
burned, and the very next day the foxes had vanished. 

In Berkshire I once met with that rare being, an intel- 
ligent gamekeeper who took an interest in wild animals 
and knew from observation a great deal about their 
habits. During an after-supper talk, kept up till past 
midnight, we discussed the subject of strange, erratic 
actions in animals, which in some cases appear contrary 
to their own natures. He gave an instance of such be- 
haviour in a fox that had its earth at a spot on the border 
of a wood where rabbits were abundant. One evening 
he was at this spot, standing among the trees and watch- 
ing a number of rabbits feeding and gambolling on the 
green turf, when the fox came trotting by and the rabbits 
paid no attention. Suddenly he stopped and made a 
dart at a rabbit; the rabbit ran from him a distance of 
twenty to thirty yards, then suddenly turning round 
went for the fox and chased it back some distance, after 
which the fox again chased the rabbit, and so they went 
on, turn and turn about, half a dozen times. It was 
evident, he said, that the fox had no wish to catch and 
kill a rabbit, that it was nothing but play on his part, 
and that the rabbits responded in the same spirit, know- 
ing that there was nothing to fear. 

Another instance of this playful spirit of the fox with 
an enemy, which I heard recently, is of a gentleman who 
was out with his dog, a fox-terrier, for an evening walk 
in some woods near his house. On his way back he 



THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES 113 

discovered on coming out of the woods that a fox was 
following him, at a distance of about forty yards. When 
he stood still the fox sat down and watched the dog. 
The dog appeared indifferent to its presence until his 
master ordered him to go for the fox, whereupon he 
charged him and drove him back to the edge of the wood, 
but at that point the fox turned and chased the dog right 
back to its master, then once more sat down and appeared 
very much at his ease. Again the dog was encouraged 
to go for him and hunted him again back to the wood, 
and was then in turn chased back to its master. After 
several repetitions of this performance, the gentleman 
went home, the fox still following, and on going in closed 
the gate behind him, leaving the fox outside, sitting in 
the road as if waiting for him to come out again to 
have some more fun. 

This incident serves to remind me of an experience 
I had one evening in King's Copse, an immense wood 
of oak and pine in the New Forest near Exbury. It was 
growing dark when I heard on or close to the ground, 
some twenty to thirty yards before me, a low, wailing 
cry, resembling the hunger-cry of the young, long-eared 
owl. I began cautiously advancing, trying to see it, but 
as I advanced the cry receded, as if the bird was flitting 
from me. Now, just after I had begun following the 
sound, a fox uttered his sudden, startling loud scream 
about forty yards away on my right hand, and the next 
moment a second fox screamed on my left, and from 
that time I was accompanied, or shadowed, by the two 
foxes, always keeping abreast of me, always at the same 
distance, one screaming and the other replying about 
every half minute. The distressful bird-sound ceased, 



114 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

and I turned and went off in another direction, to get 
out of the wood on the side nearest the place where I 
was staying, the foxes keeping with me until I was out. 

What moved them to act in such a way is a mystery, 
but it was perhaps play to them. 

Another curious instance of foxes playing was related 
to me by a gentleman at the little village of Inkpen, near 
the Beacon, in Berkshire. He told me that when it hap- 
pened, a good many years ago, he sent an account of it 
to the "Field." His game-keeper took him one day "to 
see a strange thing," to a spot in the woods where a fox 
had a litter of four cubs, near a long, smooth, green 
slope. A little distance from the edge of the slope three 
round swedes were lying on the turf. "How do you 
think these swedes came here ?" said the keeper, and then 
proceeded to say that the old fox must have brought 
them there from the field a long distance away, for her 
cubs to play with. He had watched them of an evening, 
and wanted his master to come and see too. Accordingly 
they went in the evening, and hiding themselves among 
the bushes near waited till the young foxes came out and 
began rolling the swedes about and jumping at and 
tumbling over them. By and by one rolled down the 
slope, and the young foxes went after it all the way 
down, and then, when they had worried it sufficiently, 
they returned to the top and played with another swede 
until that was rolled down, then with the third one in 
the same way. Every morning, the keeper said, the 
swedes were found back on top of the ground, and he 
had no doubt that they were taken up by the old fox 
again and left there for her cubs to play with. 

Caleb was not so eager after rabbits as Shepherd 



THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES 115 

Gathergood, but he disliked the fox for another reason. 
He considered that the hunted fox was a great danger 
to sheep when the ewes were heavy with lambs and when 
the chase brought the animal near if not right into the 
flock. He had one dreadful memory of a hunted fox 
trying to lose itself in his flock of heavy-sided ewes and 
the hounds following it and driving the poor sheep mad 
with terror. The result was that a large number of 
lambs were cast before their time and many others were 
poor, sickly things; many of the sheep also suffered in 
health. He had no extra money from the lambs that 
year. He received but a shilling (half a crown is often 
paid now) for every lamb above the number of ewes, 
and as a rule received from three to six pounds a year 
from this source. 




j& K ffltiL.»- c * 



CHAPTER X 
Bird Life on the Downs 

Great bustard — Stone curlew — Big hawks — Former 
abundance of the raven — Dogs fed on carrion — 
Ravens fighting — Ravens' breeding-places in Wilts 
•—Great Ridge Wood ravens — Field-fare breeding in 
Wilts — Pewit — Mistle-thrush — Magpie and turtle- 
dove — Gamekeepers and magpies — Rooks and farm- 
ers — Starling, the shepherd's favourite bird — Spar- 
rowhawk and "brown thrush" 



Wiltshire, like other places in England, has long been 
deprived of its most interesting birds — the species that 
were best worth preserving. Its great bustard, once our 
greatest bird — even greater than the golden and sea eagles 
and the "giant crane" with its "trumpet sound" once heard 
in the land — is now but a memory. Or a place name: 
Bustard Inn, no longer an inn, is well known to the 
many thousands who now go to the mimic wars on Salis- 
bury Plain ; and there is a Trappist monastery in a village 
on the southernmost border of the county, which was 

116 



BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS 117 

once called, and is still known to old men, as "Bustard 
Farm." All that Caleb Bawcombe knew of this grandest 
bird is what his father had told him; and Isaac knew 
of it only from hearsay, although it was still met with 
in South Wilts when he was a young man. 

The stone curlew, our little bustard with the long 
wings, big, yellow eyes, and wild voice, still frequents 
the uncultivated downs, unhappily in diminishing num- 
bers. For the private collector's desire to possess British- 
taken birds' eggs does not diminish ; I doubt if more than 
one clutch in ten escapes the searching eyes of the poor 
shepherds and labourers who are hired to supply the 
cabinets. One pair haunted a flinty spot at Winterbourne 
Bishop until a year or two ago; at other points a few 
miles away I watched other pairs during the summer of 
1909, but in every instance their eggs were taken. 

The larger hawks and the raven, which bred in all the 
woods and forests of Wiltshire, have, of course, been 
extirpated by the gamekeepers. The biggest forest in 
the county now affords no refuge to any hawk above 
the size of a kestrel. Savernake is extensive enough, 
one would imagine, for condors to hide in, but it is not 
so. A few years ago a buzzard made its appearance there 
— just a common buzzard, and the entire surrounding 
population went mad with excitement about it, and every 
man who possessed a gun flew to the forest to join in 
the hunt until the wretched bird, after being blazed at 
for two or three days, was brought down. 

I heard of another case at Fonthill Abbey. Nobody 
could say what this wandering hawk was — it was very 
big, blue above with a white breast barred with black — 
a "tarrable," fierce-looking bird with fierce, yellow eyes. 



118 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

All the gamekeepers and several other men with guns 
were in hot pursuit of it for several days, until some one 
fatally wounded it, but it could not be found where it 
was supposed to have fallen. A fortnight later its carcass 
was discovered by an old shepherd, who told me the 
story. It was not in a fit state to be preserved, but he 
described it to me, and I have no doubt that it was a 
goshawk. 

The raven survived longer, and the Shepherd Baw- 
combe talks about its abundance when he was a boy, 
seventy or more years ago. His way of accounting for 
its numbers at that time and its subsequent, somewhat 
rapid disappearance greatly interested me. 

We have seen his account of deer-stealing by the vil- 
lagers in those brave, old, starvation days when Lord 
Rivers owned the deer and hunting rights over a large 
part of Wiltshire, extending from Cranborne Chase to 
Salisbury, and when even so righteous a man as Isaac 
Bawcombe was tempted by hunger to take an occasional 
deer, discovered out of bounds. At that time, Caleb said, 
a good many dogs used for hunting the deer were kept 
a few miles from Winterbourne Bishop and were fed 
by the keepers in a very primitive manner. Old, worn- 
out horses were bought and slaughtered for the dogs. 
A horse would be killed and stripped of his hide some- 
where away in the woods, and left for the hounds to 
batten on its flesh, tearing at and fighting over it like so 
many jackals. When only partially consumed the carcass 
would become putrid ; then another horse would be killed 
and skinned at another spot perhaps a mile away, and 
the pack would start feeding afresh there. The result 
of so much carrion lying about was that ravens were 



BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS 119 

attracted in numbers to the place and were so numerous 
as to be seen in scores together. Later, when the deer- 
hunting sport declined in the neighbourhood, and dogs 
were no longer fed on carrion, the birds decreased year 
by year, and when Caleb was a boy of nine or ten their 
former great abundance was but a memory. But he re- 
members that they were still fairly common, and he had 
much to say about the old belief that the raven "smells 
death," and when seen hovering over a flock, uttering its 
croak, it is a sure sign that a sheep is in a bad way and 
will shortly die. 

One of his recollections of the bird may be given here. 
It was one of those things seen in boyhood which had 
very deeply impressed him. One fine day he was on 
the down with an elder brother, when they heard the 
familiar croak and spied three birds at a distance engaged 
in a fight in the air. Two of the birds were in pursuit 
of the third, and rose alternately to rush upon and strike 
at their victim from above. They were coming down 
from a considerable height, and at last were directly over 
the boys, not more than forty or fifty feet from the 
ground; and the youngsters were amazed at their fury, 
the loud, rushing sound of their wings, as of a torrent, 
and of their deep, hoarse croaks and savage, barking 
cries. Then they began to rise again, the hunted bird 
trying to keep above his enemies, they in their turn striv- 
ing to rise higher still so as to rush down upon him from 
overhead; and in this way they towered higher and 
higher, their barking cries coming fainter and fainter 
back to earth, until the boys, not to lose sight of them, 
cast themselves down flat on their backs, and, continuing 
to gaze up, saw them at last no bigger than three "leetle 



120 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

blackbirds." Then they vanished, but the boys, still 
lying on their backs, kept their eyes fixed on the same 
spot, and by and by first one black speck reappeared, then 
a second, and they soon saw that two birds were swiftly 
coming down to earth. They fell swiftly and silently, 
and finally pitched upon the down not more than a couple 
of hundred yards from the boys. The hunted bird had 
evidently succeeded in throwing them off and escaping. 
Probably it was one of their own young, for the ravens' 
habit is when their young are fully grown to hunt them 
out of the neighbourhood, or, when they cannot drive 
them off, to kill them. 

There is no doubt that the carrion did attract ravens 
in numbers to this part of Wiltshire, but it is a fact that 
up to that date — about 1830 — the bird had many well- 
known, old breeding-places in the county. The Rev. A. 
C. Smith, in his "Birds of Wiltshire," names twenty- 
three breeding-places, no fewer than nine of them on 
Salisbury Plain ; but at the date of the publication of his 
work, 1887, only three of all these nesting-places were 
still in use: South Tidworth, Wilton Park, and Compton 
Park, Compton Chamberlain. Doubtless there were other 
ancient breeding-places which the author had not heard 
of: one was at the Great Ridge Wood, overlooking the 
Wylye valley, where ravens bred down to about thirty- 
five or forty years ago. I have found many old men in 
that neighbourhood who remember the birds, and they 
tell that the raven tree was a great oak which was cut 
down about sixty years ago, after which the birds built 
their nest in another tree not far away. A London friend 
of mine, who was born in the neighbourhood of the Great 
Ridge Wood, remembers the ravens as one of the com- 



BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS 121 

mon sights of the place when he was a boy. He tells of 
an unlucky farmer in those parts whose sheep fell sick 
and died in numbers, year after year, bringing him down 
to the brink of ruin, and how his old head-shepherd 
would say, solemnly shaking his head, " Tis not strange 
— master, he shot a raven." 

There was no ravens' breeding-place very near Winter- 
bourne Bishop. Caleb had "never heared tell of a nestie" ; 




but he had once seen the nest of another species which 
is supposed never to breed in this country. He was a 
small boy at the time, when one day an old shepherd of 
the place going out from the village saw Caleb, and calling 
to him said, "You're the boy that likes birds; if you'll 
come with me, I'll show 'ee what no man ever seed afore" ; 
and Caleb, fired with curiosity, followed him away to 
a distance from home, out from the downs, into the 
woods and to a place where he had never been, where 
there was bracken and heath with birch- and thorn-trees 
scattered about. On cautiously approaching a clump of 



122 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

birches they saw a big, thrush-like bird fly out of a large 
nest about ten feet from the ground, and settle on a tree 
close by, where it was joined by its mate. The old man 
pointed out that it was a felt or fieldfare, a thrush nearly 
as big as the mistle-thrush but different in colour, and 
he said that it was a bird that came to England in flocks 
in winter from no man knows where, far off in the north, 
and always went away before breeding-time. This was 
the only felt he had ever seen breeding in this country, 
and he "didn't believe that no man had ever seed such a 
thing before." He would not climb the tree to see the 
eggs, or even go very near it, for fear of disturbing the 
birds. 

This man, Caleb said, was a great one for birds: he 
knew them all, but seldom said anything about them; 
he watched and found out a good deal about them just 
for his private pleasure. 

The characteristic species of this part of the down 
country, comprising the parish of Winterbourne Bishop, 
are the pewit, magpie, turtledove, mistle-thrush, and 
starling. The pewit is universal on the hills, but will 
inevitably be driven away from all that portion of 
Salisbury Plain used for military purposes. The mistle- 
thrush becomes common in summer after its early breed- 
ing season is ended, when the birds in small flocks resort 
to the downs, where they continue until cold weather 
drives them away to the shelter of the wooded, low 
country. 

In this neighbourhood there are thickets of thorn, 
holly, bramble, and birch growing over hundreds of 
acres of down, and here the hill-magpie, as it is called, 
has its chief breeding-ground, and is so common that 



BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS 123 

you can always get a sight of at least twenty birds in 
an afternoon's walk. Here, too, is the metropolis of 
the turtledove, and the low sound of its crooning is heard 
all day in summer, the other most common sound being 
that of magpies — their subdued, conversational chatter 
and their solo-singing, the chant or call which a bird will 
go on repeating for a hundred times. The wonder is 
how the doves succeed in such a place in hatching any 
couple of chalk-white eggs, placed on a small platform 
of sticks, or of rearing any pair of young, conspicuous 
in their blue skins and bright yellow down ! 

The keepers tell me they get even with these kill-birds 
later in the year, when they take to roosting in the woods, 
a mile away in the valley. The birds are waited for at 
some point where they are accustomed to slip in at dark, 
and one keeper told me that on one evening alone assisted 
by a friend he had succeeded in shooting thirty birds. 

On Winterbourne Bishop Down and round the village 
the magpies are not persecuted, probably because the 
gamekeepers, the professional bird-killers, have lost heart 
in this place. It is a curious and rather pretty story. 
There is no squire, as we have seen; the farmers have 
the rabbits, and for game the shooting is let, or to let, 
by some one who claims to be lord of the manor, who 
lives at a distance or abroad. At all events he is not 
known personally to the people, and all they know about 
the overlordship is that, whereas in years gone by every 
villager had certain rights in the down — to cut furze and 
keep a cow, or pony, or donkey, or half a dozen sheep 
or goats — now they have none; but how and why and 
when these rights were lost nobody knows. Naturally 
there is no sympathy between the villagers and the keepers 



124 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

sent from a distance to protect the game, so that the 
shooting may be let to some other stranger. On the 
contrary, they religiously destroy every nest they can 
find, with the result that there are too few birds for any- 
one to take the shooting, and it remains year after year 
unlet. 

This unsettled state of things is all to the advantage 
of the black and white bird with the ornamental tail, and 
he flourishes accordingly and builds his big, thorny nests 
in the roadside trees about the village. 

The one big bird on these downs, as in so many other 
places in England, is the rook, and let us humbly thank 
the gods who own this green earth and all the creatures 
which inhabit it that they have in their goodness left us 
this one. For it is something to have a rook, although 
he is not a great bird compared with the great ones lost 
— bustard and kite and raven and goshawk, and many 
others. His abundance on the cultivated downs is rather 
strange when one remembers the outcry made against 
him in some parts on account of his injurious habits ; but 
here it appears the sentiment in his favour is just as 
strong in the farmer, or in a good many farmers, as in 
the great landlord. The biggest rookery I know on 
Salisbury Plain is at a farm-house where the farmer 
owns the land himself and cultivates about nine hundred 
acres. One would imagine that he would keep his rooks 
down in these days when a boy cannot be hired to scare 
the birds from the crops. 

One day, near West Knoyle, I came upon a vast com- 
pany of rooks busily engaged on a ploughed field where 
everything short of placing a bird-scarer on the ground 
had been done to keep the birds off. A score of rooks 



BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS 125 

had been shot and suspended to long sticks planted about 
the field, and there were three formidable-looking men 
of straw and rags with hats on their heads and wooden 
guns under their arms. But the rooks were there all 
the same ; I counted seven at one spot, prodding the earth 
close to the feet of one of the scarecrows. I went into 
the field to see what they were doing, and found that 
it was sown with vetches, just beginning to come up, 
and the birds were digging the seed up. 

Three months later, near the same spot, on Mere Down, 
I found these birds feasting on the corn, when it had 
been long cut but could not be carried on account of the 
wet weather. It was a large field of fifty to sixty acres, 
and as I walked by it the birds came flying leisurely over 
my head to settle with loud cawings on the stooks. It 
was a magnificent sight — the great, blue-black bird-forms 
on the golden wheat, an animated group of three or four 
to half a dozen on every stook, while others walked about 
the ground to pick up the scattered grain, and others were 
flying over them, for just then the sun was shining on 
the field and beyond it the sky was blue. Never had I 
witnessed birds so manifestly rejoicing at their good 
fortune, with happy, loud caw-caw. Or rather haw-haw ! 
what a harvest, what abundance ! was there ever a more 
perfect August and September! Rain, rain, by night 
and in the morning; then sun and wind to dry our feathers 
and make us glad, but never enough to dry the corn to 
enable them to carry it and build it up in stacks where 
it would be so much harder to get at. Could anything 
be better ! 

But the commonest bird, the one which vastly out- 
numbers all the others I have named together, is the 



126 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

starling. It was Caleb Bawcombe's favourite bird, and 
I believe it is regarded with peculiar affection by all 
shepherds on the downs on account of its constant asso- 
ciation with sheep in the pasture. The dog, the sheep, 
and the crowd of starlings — these are the lonely man's 
companions during his long days on the hills from April 
or May to November. And what a wise bird he is, and 
how well he knows his friends and his enemies ! There 
was nothing more beautiful to see, Caleb would say, than 
the behaviour of a flock of starlings when a hawk was 
about. If it was a kestrel they took little or no notice 
of it, but if a sparrowhawk made its appearance, instantly 
the crowd of birds could be seen flying at furious speed 
towards the nearest flock of sheep, and down into the 
flock they would fall like a shower of stones and instantly 
disappear from sight. There they would remain on the 
ground, among the legs of the grazing sheep, until the 
hawk had gone on his way and passed out of sight. 

The sparrowhawk's victims are mostly made among 
the young birds that flock together in summer and live 
apart from the adults during the summer months after 
the breeding season is over. 

When I find a dead starling on the downs ranged over 
by sparrowhawks, it is almost always a young bird — a 
"brown thrush" as it used to be called by the old natural- 
ists. You may know that the slayer was a sparrowhawk 
by the appearance of the bird, its body untouched, but 
the flesh picked neatly from the neck and the head gone. 
That was swallowed whole, after the beak had been cut 
off. You will find the beak lying by the side of the body. 
In summer-time, when birds are most abundant, after 
the breeding season, the sparrowhawk is a fastidious 
feeder. 




CHAPTER XI 
Starlings and Sheep-Bells 

Starlings' singing — Native and borrowed sounds — Imi- 
tations of sheep-bells — The shepherd on sheep-bells 
— The bells for pleasure, not use — A dog in charge 
of the flock — Shepherd calling his sheep — Richard 
Warner of Bath — Ploughmen singing to their oxen 
in Cornwall — A shepherd's loud singing 

The subject of starlings associating with sheep has served 
to remind me of something I have often thought when 
listening to their music. It happens that I am writing 
this chapter in a small village on Salisbury Plain, the 
time being mid-September, 1909, and that just outside 
my door there is a group of old elder-bushes laden just 
now with clusters of ripe berries on which the starlings 
come to feed, filling the room all day with that never- 
ending medley of sounds which is their song. They sing 
in this way not only when they sing — that is to say, when 
they make a serious business of it, standing motionless 

127 



128 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

and a-shiver on the tiles, wings drooping and open beak 
pointing upwards, but also when they are feasting on 
fruit — singing and talking and swallowing elder-berries 
between whiles to wet their whistles. If the weather is 
not too cold you will hear this music daily, wet or dry, 
all the year round. We may say that of all singing birds 
they are most vocal, yet have no set song. I doubt if they 
have more than half a dozen to a dozen sounds or notes 
which are the same in every individual and their very 
own. One of them is a clear, soft, musical whistle, 
slightly inflected; another a kissing sound, usually re- 
peated two or three times or oftener, a somewhat per- 
cussive smack; still another, a sharp, prolonged hissing 
or sibilant but at the same time metallic note, compared 
by some one to the sound produced by milking a cow 
into a tin pail — a very good description. There are other 
lesser notes : a musical, thrush-like chirp, repeated slowly, 
and sometimes rapidly till it runs to a bubbling sound; 
also there is a horny sound, which is perhaps produced 
by striking upon the edges of the lower mandible with 
those of the upper. But it is quite unlike the loud, hard 
noise made by the stork; the poor stork being a dumb 
bird has made a sort of policeman's rattle of his huge 
beak. These sounds do not follow each other ; they come 
from time to time, the intervals being filled up with others 
in such endless variety, each bird producing its own notes, 
that one can but suppose that they are imitations. We 
know, in fact, that the starling is our greatest mimic, 
and that he often succeeds in recognizable reproductions 
of single notes, of phrases, and occasionally of entire 
songs, as, for instance, that of the blackbird. But in 
listening to him we are conscious of his imitations; even 



STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS 129 

when at his best he amuses rather than delights — he is 
not like the mocking-bird. His common starling pipe 
cannot produce sounds of pure and beautiful quality, like 
the blackbird's "oboe-voice," to quote Davidson's apt 
phrase ; he emits this song in a strangely subdued tone, 
producing the effect of a blackbird heard singing at a 
considerable distance. And so with innumerable other 
notes, calls, and songs — they are often to their originals 
what a man's voice heard on a telephone is to his natural 
voice. He succeeds best, as a rule, in imitations of the 
coarser, metallic sounds, and as his medley abounds in 
a variety of little, measured, tinkling, and clinking notes, 
as of tappings on a metal plate, it has struck me at times 
that these are probably borrowed from the sheep-bells 
of which the bird hears so much in his feeding-grounds. 
It is, however, not necessary to suppose that every star- 
ling gets these sounds directly from the bells; the birds 
undoubtedly mimic one another, as is the case with 
mocking-birds, and the young might easily acquire this 
part of their song language from the old birds without 
visiting the flocks in the pastures. 

The sheep-bell, in its half-muffled strokes, as of a 
small hammer tapping on an iron or copper plate, is, one 
would imagine, a sound well within the starling's range, 
easily imitated, therefore specially attractive to him. 

But — to pass to another subject — what does the shep- 
herd himself think or feel about it; and why does he 
have bells on his sheep? 

He thinks a great deal of his bells. He pipes not like 
the shepherd of fable or of the pastoral poets, nor plays 
upon any musical instrument, and seldom sings, or even 
whistles — that sorry substitute for song; he loves music 



130 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



nevertheless, and gets it in his sheep-bells; and he likes 
it in quantity. "How many bells have you got on your 
sheep — it sounds as if you had a great many?" I asked 
of a shepherd the other day, feeding his flock near Old 
Sarum, and he replied, "Just forty, and I wish there were 
eighty." Twenty-five or thirty is a more usual number, 
but only because of their cost, for the shepherd has very 
little money for bells or anything else. Another told 



' ' As 




FILLING THE CBIBS. 



me that he had "only thirty," but he intended getting 
more. The sound cheers him; it is not exactly monoto- 
nous, owing to the bells being of various sizes and also 
greatly varying in thickness, so that they produce different 
tones, from the sharp tinkle-tinkle of the smallest to the 
sonorous klonk-klonk of the big, copper bell. Then, too, 
they are differently agitated, some quietly when the sheep 
are grazing with heads down, others rapidly as the animal 
walks or trots on ; and there are little bursts or peals when 
a sheep shakes its head, all together producing a kind of 



STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS 131 

rude harmony — a music which, like that of bagpipes or 
of chiming church bells, heard from a distance, is akin 
to natural music and accords with rural scenes. 

As to use, there is little or none. A shepherd will 
sometimes say, when questioned on the subject, that the 
bells tell him just where the flock is or in which direction 
they are travelling; but he knows better. The one who 
is not afraid to confess the simple truth of the matter 
to a stranger will tell you that he does not need the bells 
to tell him where the sheep are or in which direction they 
are grazing. His eyes are good enough for that. The 
bells are for his solace or pleasure alone. It may be 
that the sheep like the tinkling too — it is his belief that 
they do like it. A shepherd said to me a few days ago: 
"It is lonesome with the flock on the downs; more so 
in cold, wet weather, when you perhaps don't see a person 
all day — on some days not even at a distance, much less 
to speak to. The bells keep us from feeling it too much. 
We know what we have them for, and the more we have 
the better we like it. They are company to us." 

Even in fair weather he seldom has anyone to speak 
to. A visit from an idle man who will sit down and have 
a pipe and talk with him is a day to be long remembered 
and even to date events from. " 'Twas the month — 
May, June, or October — when the stranger came out to 
the down and talked to I." 

One day, in September, when sauntering over Mere 
Down, one of the most extensive and loneliest-looking 
sheep-walks in South Wilts — a vast, elevated plain or 
table-land, a portion of which is known as White Sheet 
Hill — I passed three flocks of sheep, all with many bells, 
and noticed that each flock produced a distinctly different 



132 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

sound or effect, owing doubtless to a different number 
of big and little bells in each; and it struck me that any 
shepherd on a dark night, or if taken blindfolded over 
the downs, would be able to identify his own flock by 
the sound. At the last of the three flocks a curious thing 
occurred. There was no shepherd with it or anywhere 
in sight, but a dog was in charge; I found him lying 
apparently asleep in a hollow, by the side of a stick and 
an old sack. I called to him, but instead of jumping up 
and coming to me, as he would have done if his master 
had been there, he only raised his head, looked at me, 
then put his nose down on his paws again. I am on duty 
— in sole charge — and you must not speak to me, was 
what he said. After walking a little distance on, I spied 
the shepherd with a second dog at his heels, coming over 
the down straight to the flock, and I stayed to watch. 
When still over a hundred yards from the hollow the 
dog flew ahead, and the other jumping up ran to meet 
him, and they stood together, wagging their tails as if 
conversing. When the shepherd had got up to them 
he stood and began uttering a curious call, a somewhat 
musical cry in two notes, and instantly the sheep, now 
at a considerable distance, stopped feeding and turned, 
then all together began running towards him, and when 
within thirty yards stood still, massed together, and all 
gazing at him. He then uttered a different call, and turn- 
ing walked away, the dogs keeping with him and the 
sheep closely following. It was late in the day, and he 
was going to fold them down at the foot of the slope in 
some fields half a mile away. 

As the scene I had witnessed appeared unusual I related 
it to the very next shepherd I talked with. 



STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS 133 

"Oh, there was nothing in that," he said. "Of course 
the dog was behind the flock." 

I said, "No, the peculiar thing was that both dogs 
were with their master, and the flock followed." 

"Well, my sheep would do the same," he returned. 
"That is, they'll do it if they know there's something 
good for them — something they like in the fold. They 
are very knowing." And other shepherds to whom I 
related the incident said pretty much the same, but they 
apparently did not quite like to hear that any shepherd 
could control his sheep with his voice alone; their way 
of receiving the story confirmed me in the belief that I 
had witnessed something unusual. 

Before concluding this short chapter I will leave the 
subject of the Wiltshire shepherd and his sheep to quote 
a remarkable passage about men singing to their cattle 
in Cornwall, from a work on that county by Richard 
Warner of Bath, once a well-known and prolific writer 
of topographical and other books. They are little known 
now, I fancy, but he was great in his day, which lasted 
from about the middle of the eighteenth to about the 
middle of the nineteenth century — at all events, he died 
in 1857, aged 94. But he was not great at first, and 
finding when nearing middle age that he was not pros- 
pering, he took to the Church and had several livings, 
some of them running concurrently, as was the fashion 
in those dark days. His topographical work included 
Walks in Wales, in Somerset, in Devon, Walks in many 
places, usually taken in a stage-coach or on horseback, 
containing nothing worth remembering except perhaps 
the one passage I have mentioned, which is as follows: — 

"We had scarcely entered Cornwall before our atten- 



134 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

tion was agreeably arrested by a practice connected with 
the agriculture of the people, which to us was entirely 
novel. The farmers judiciously employ the fine oxen 
of the country in ploughing, and other processes of hus- 
bandry, to which the strength of this useful animal can 
be employed" — the Rev. Richard Warner is tedious, but 
let us be patient and see what follows — "to which the 
strength of this useful animal can be employed; and 
while the hinds are thus driving their patient slaves along 
the furrows, they continually cheer them with conver- 
sation, denoting approbation and pleasure. This encour- 
agement is conveyed to them in a sort of chaunt, of very 
agreeable modulation, which, floating through the air 
from different distances, produces a striking effect both 
on the ear and imagination. The notes are few and 
simple, and when delivered by a clear, melodious voice, 
have something expressive of that tenderness and affec- 
tion which man naturally entertains for the companions 
of his labours, in a pastoral state of society, when, feeling 
more forcibly his dependence upon domesticated animals 
for support, he gladly reciprocates with them kindness 
and protection for comfort and subsistence. This wild 
melody was to me, I confess, peculiarly affecting. It 
seemed to draw more closely the link of friendship 
between man and the humbler tribes of fellow mortals. 
It solaced my heart with the appearance of humanity, 
in a world of violence and in times of universal hostile 
rage ; and it gladdened my fancy with the contemplation 
of those days of heavenly harmony, promised in the 
predictions of eternal truth, when man, freed at length 
from prejudice and passion, shall seek his happiness in 
cultivating the mild, the benevolent, and the merciful 



STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS 135 

sensibilities of his nature; and when the animal world, 
catching the virtues of its lord and master, shall soften 
into gentleness and love ; when the wolf". . . 

And so on, clause after clause, with others to be added, 
until the whole sentence becomes as long as a fishing-rod. 
But apart from the fiddlededee, is the thing he states 
believable? It is a charming picture, and one would like 
to know more about that "chaunt," that "wild melody." 
The passage aroused my curiosity when in Cornwall, as 
it had appeared to me that in no part of England are 
the domestic animals so little considered by their masters. 
The R.S.P.C.A. is practically unknown there, and when 
watching the doings of shepherds or drovers with their 
sheep the question has occurred to me, What would my 
Wiltshire shepherd friends say of such a scene if they 
had witnessed it ? There is nothing in print which I can 
find to confirm Warner's observations, and if you inquire 
of very old men who have been all their lives on the soil 
they will tell you that there has never been such a custom 
in their time, nor have they ever heard of it as existing 
formerly. Warner's Tour through Cornwall is dated 
1808. 

I take it that he described a scene he actually witnessed, 
and that he jumped to the conclusion that it was a com- 
mon custom for the ploughman to sing to his oxen. It is 
not unusual to find a man anywhere singing to his oxen, 
or horses, or sheep, if he has a voice and is fond of exer- 
cising it. I remember that in a former book — "Nature 
in Downland" — I described the sweet singing of a cow- 
boy when tending his cows on a heath near Trotton, in 
West Sussex; and here in Wiltshire it amused me to 



136 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



listen, at a vast distance, to the robust singing of a shep- 
herd while following his flock on the great lonely downs 
above Chitterne. He was a sort of Tamagno of the 
downs, with a tremendous voice audible a mile away. 





CHAPTER XII 
The Shepherd and the Bible 

Dan'l Burdon, the treasure-seeker — The shepherd's feel- 
ing for the Bible — Effect of the pastoral life — The 
shepherd's story of Isaac's boyhood — The village on 
the Wylye 

One of the shepherd's early memories was of Dan'l 
Burdon, a labourer on the farm where Isaac Bawcombe 
was head-shepherd. He retained a vivid recollection of 
this person, who had a profound gravity and was the 
most silent man in the parish. He was always thinking 
about hidden treasure, and all his spare time was spent 
in seeking for it. On a Sunday morning, or in the 
evening after working hours, he would take a spade or 
pick and go away over the hills on his endless search 
after "something he could not find." He opened some 
of the largest barrows, making trenches six to ten feet 
deep through them, but found nothing to reward him. 
One day he took Caleb with him, and they went to a 
part of the down where there were certain depressions 

137 



138 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

in the turf of a circular form and six to seven feet in 
circumference. Burdon had observed these basin-like 
depressions and had thought it possible they marked the 
place where things of value had been buried in long-past 
ages. To begin he cut the turf all round and carefully 
removed it, then dug and found a thick layer of flints. 
These removed, he came upon a deposit of ashes and 
charred wood. And that was all. Burdon without a 
word set to work to put it all back in its place again — 
ashes and wood, and earth and flints — and having trod 
it firmly down he carefully replaced the turf, then leaning 
on his spade gazed silently at the spot for a space of 
several minutes. At last he spoke. "Maybe, Caleb, 
you've heard tell about what the Bible says of burnt 
sacrifice. Well now, I be of opinion that it were here. 
They people the Bible says about, they come up here 
to sacrifice on White Bustard Down, and these be the 
places where they made their fires." 

Then he shouldered his spade and started home, the 
boy following. Caleb's comment was: "I didn't say 
nothing to un because I were only a leetel boy and he 
were a old man; but I knowed better than that all the 
time, because them people in the Bible they was never 
in England at all, so how could they sacrifice on White 
Bustard Down in Wiltsheer?" 

It was no idle boast on his part. Caleb and his brothers 
had been taught their letters when small, and the Bible 
was their one book, which they read not only in the 
evenings at home but out on the downs during the day 
when they were with the flock. His extreme familiarity 
with the whole Scripture narrative was a marvel to me; 
it was also strange, considering how intelligent a man 



THE SHEPHERD AND THE BIBLE 139 

he was, that his lifelong reading of that one book had 
made no change in his rude "Wiltsheer" speech. 

Apart from the feeling which old, religious country 
people, who know nothing about the Higher Criticism, 
have for the Bible, taken literally as the Word of God, 
there is that in the old Scriptures which appeals in a 
special way to the solitary man who feeds his flock on 
the downs. I remember well in the days of my boyhood 
and youth, when living in a purely pastoral country 
among a semi-civilized and very simple people, how 
understandable and eloquent many of the ancient stories 
were to me. The life, the outlook, the rude customs, 
and the vivid faith in the Unseen, were much the same 
in that different race in a far-distant age, in a remote 
region of the earth, and in the people I mixed with in 
my own home. That country has been changed now; 
it has been improved and civilized and brought up to the 
European standard ; I remember it when it was as it had 
existed for upwards of two centuries before it had caught 
the contagion. The people I knew were the descendants 
of the Spanish colonists of the seventeenth century, who 
had taken kindly to the life of the plains, and had easily 
shed the traditions and ways of thought of Europe and 
of towns. Their philosophy of life, their ideals, their 
morality, were the result of the conditions they existed 
in, and wholly unlike ours ; and the conditions were like 
those of the ancient people of which the Bible tells us. 
Their very phraseology was strongly reminiscent of that 
of the sacred writings, and their character in the best 
specimens was like that of the men of the far past who 
lived nearer to God, as we say, and certainly nearer to 
nature than it is possible for us in this artificial state. 



140 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Among these sometimes grand old men who were large 
land-owners, rich in flocks and herds, these fine old, 
dignified "natives," the substantial and leading men of 
the district who could not spell their own names, there 
were those who reminded you of Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob and Esau and Joseph and his brethren, and even 




C4BTINS WATER 
VOtt TUB FLOCK. 



of David the passionate psalmist, with perhaps a guitar 
for a harp. 

No doubt the Scripture lessons read in the thousand 
churches on every Sunday of the year are practically 
meaningless to the hearers. These old men, with their 
sheep and goats and wives, and their talk about God, are 
altogether out of our ways of thought, in fact as far 
from us — as incredible or unimaginable, we may say — 
as the neolithic men or the inhabitants of another planet. 
They are of the order of mythical heroes and the giants 
of antiquity. To read about them is an ancient custom, 
but we do not listen. 

Even to myself the memories of my young days came 



THE SHEPHERD AND THE BIBLE 141 

to be regarded as very little more than mere imaginations, 
and I almost ceased to believe in them until, after years 
of mixing with modern men, mostly in towns, I fell in 
with the downland shepherds, and discovered that even 
here, in densely populated and ultra-civilized England, 
something of the ancient spirit had survived. In Caleb, 
and a dozen old men more or less like him, I seemed to 
find myself among the people of the past, and sometimes 
they were so much like some of the remembered, old, 
sober, and slow-minded herders of the plains that I could 
not help saying to myself, Why, how this man reminds 
me of Tio Isidoro, or of Don Pascual of the "Three 
Poplar Trees," or of Marcos who would always have 
three black sheep in a flock. And just as they reminded 
me of these men I had actually known, so did they bring 
back the older men of the Bible history — Abraham and 
Jacob and the rest. 

The point here is that these old Bible stories have a 
reality and significance for the shepherd of the down 
country which they have lost for modern minds; that 
they recognize their own spiritual lineaments in these 
antique portraits, and that all these strange events might 
have happened a few years ago and not far away. 

One day I said to Caleb Bawcombe that his knowledge 
of the Bible, especially of the old part, was greater than 
that of the other shepherds I knew on the downs, and 
I would like to hear why it was so. This led to the 
telling of a fresh story about his father's boyhood, which 
he had heard in later years from his mother. Isaac was 
an only child and not the son of a shepherd; his father 
was a rather worthless if not a wholly bad man; he was 
idle and dissolute, and being remarkably dextrous with 



142 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

his fists he was persuaded, by certain sporting persons to 
make a business of fighting — quite a common thing in 
those days. He wanted nothing better and spent the 
greater part of the time in wandering about the country ; 
the money he made was spent away from home, mostly 
in drink, while his wife was left to keep herself and 
child in the best way she could at home or in the fields. 
By and by a poor stranger came to the village in search 
of work and was engaged for very little pay by a small 
farmer, for the stranger confessed that he was without 
experience of farm work of any description. The cheap- 
est lodging he could find was in the poor woman's cottage, 
and then Isaac's mother, who pitied him because he was 
so poor and a stranger alone in the world, a very silent, 
melancholy man, formed the opinion that he had belonged 
to another rank in life. His speech and hands and per- 
sonal habits betrayed it. Undoubtedly he was a gentle- 
man ; and then from something in his manner, his voice, 
and his words whenever he addressed her, and his atten- 
tion to religion, she further concluded that he had been 
in the Church; that, owing to some trouble or disaster, 
he had abandoned his place in the world to live away 
from all who had known him, as a labourer. 

One day he spoke to her about Isaac: he said he had 
been observing him and thought it a great pity that such 
a fine, intelligent boy should be allowed to grow up 
without learning his letters. She agreed that it was, but 
what could she do? The village school was kept by an 
old woman, and though she taught the children very little 
it had to be paid for, and she could not afford it. He 
then offered to teach Isaac himself and she gladly con- 
sented, and from that day he taught Isaac for a couple 



THE SHEPHERD AND THE BIBLE 143 

of hours every evening until the boy was able to read 
very well, after which they read the Bible through to- 
gether, the poor man explaining everything, especially 
the historical parts, so clearly and beautifully, with such 
an intimate knowledge of the countries and peoples and 
customs of the remote East, that it was all more interest- 
ing than a fairy-tale. Finally he gave his copy of the 
Bible to Isaac, and told him to carry it in his pocket every 




• COEFORD on nit WYKTE 



day when he went out on the downs, and when he sat 
down to take it out and read in it. For by this time 
Isaac, who was now ten years old, had been engaged 
as a shepherd-boy to his great happiness, for to be a 
shepherd was his ambition. 

Then one day the stranger rolled up his few belongings 
in a bundle and put them on a stick which he placed on 
his shoulder, said good-bye, and went away, never to 
return, taking his sad secret with him. 

Isaac followed the stranger's counsel, and when he 



144 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

had sons of his own made them do as he had done from 
early boyhood. Caleb had never gone with his flock on 
the down without the book, and had never passed a day 
without reading a portion. 

The incidents and observations gathered in many talks 
with the old shepherd, which I have woven into the fore- 
going chapters, relate mainly to the earlier part of his 
life, up to the time when, a married man and father of 
three small children, he migrated to Warminster. There 
he was in, to him, a strange land, far away from friends 
and home and the old, familiar surroundings, amid new 
scenes and new people. But the few years he spent at that 
place had furnished him with many interesting memories, 
some of which will be narrated in the following chapters. 

I have told in the account of Winterbourne Bishop 
how I first went to that village just to see his native 
place, and later I visited Doveton for no other reason 
than that he had lived there, to find it one of the most 
charming of the numerous pretty villages in the vale. I 
looked for the cottage in which he had lived and thought 
it as perfect a home as a quiet, contemplative man who 
loved nature could have had: a small, thatched cottage, 
very old looking, perhaps inconvenient to live in, but 
situated in the prettiest spot, away from other houses, 
near and within sight of the old church with old elms 
and beech trees growing close to it, and the land about 
it green meadow. The clear river, fringed with a luxuri- 
ant growth of sedges, flag, and reeds, was less than a 
stone's-throw away. 

So much did I like the vale of the Wylye when I grew 
to know it well that I wish to describe it fully in the 
chapter that follows. 




riSHERTOH »C 1A MERE oh Wi WYLYZ . 



CHAPTER XIII 
Vale of the Wylye 

Warminster — Vale of the Wylye — Counting the villages 
—A lost church — Character of the villages — Tyther- 
ington church — Story of the dog — Lord Lovell— 
Monuments in churches — Manor-houses — Knook — 
The cottages — Yellow stonecrop — Cottage gardens 
— Marigolds — Golden-rod — Wild flowers of the 
water-side — Seeking for the characteristic expression 

The prettily-named Wylye is a little river not above 
twenty miles in length from its rise to Salisbury, where, 
after mixing with the Nadder at Wilton, it joins the 
Avon. At or near its source stands Warminster, a small, 
unimportant town with a nobler-sounding name than any 
other in Wiltshire. Trowbridge, Devizes, Marlborough, 
Salisbury, do not stir the mind in the same degree; and 
as for Chippenham, Melksham, Mere, Calne, and Cor- 

145 



146 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

sham, these all are of no more account than so many 
villages in comparison. Yet Warminster has no associa- 
tions — no place in our mental geography; at all events 
one remembers nothing about it. Its name, which after 
all may mean nothing more than the monastery on the 
Were — one of the three streamlets which flow into the 
Wylye at its source — is its only glory. It is not sur- 
prising that Caleb Bawcombe invariably speaks of his 
migration to, and of the time he passed at Warminster, 
when, as a fact, he was not there at all, but at Doveton, 
a little village on the Wylye a few miles below the town 
with the great name. 

It is a green valley — the greenness strikes one sharply 
on account of the pale colour of the smooth, high downs 
on either side — half a mile to a mile in width, its crystal 
current showing like a bright serpent for a brief space 
in the green, flat meadows, then vanishing again among 
the trees. So many are the great shade trees, beeches 
and ashes and elms, that from some points the valley has 
the appearance of a continuous wood — a contiguity of 
shade. And the wood hides the villages, at some points 
so effectually that looking down from the hills you may 
not catch a glimpse of one and imagine it to be a valley 
where no man dwells. As a rule you do see something 
of human occupancy — the red or yellow roofs of two or 
three cottages, a half-hidden, grey church tower, or 
column of blue smoke, but to see the villages you must 
go down and look closely, and even so you will find it 
difficult to count them all. I have tried, going up and 
down the valley several times, walking or cycling, and 
have never succeeded in getting the same number on two 
occasions. There are certainly more than twenty, without 



VALE OF THE WYLYE 147 

counting the hamlets, and the right number is probably 
something between twenty-five and thirty, but I do not 
want to find out by studying books and maps. I prefer 
to let the matter remain unsettled so as to have the 
pleasure of counting or trying to count them again at 
some future time. But I doubt that I shall ever succeed. 
On one occasion I caught sight of a quaint, pretty little 
church standing by itself in the middle of a green meadow, 
where it looked very solitary with no houses in sight 
and not even a cow grazing near it. The river was 
between me and the church, so I went up-stream, a mile 
and a half, to cross by the bridge, then doubled back to 
look for the church, and couldn't find it ! Yet it was no 
illusory church; I have seen it again on two occasions, 
but again from the other side of the river, and I must 
certainly go back some day in search of that lost church, 
where there may be effigies, brasses, sad, eloquent inscrip- 
tions, and other memorials of ancient tragedies and great 
families now extinct in the land. 

This is perhaps one of the principal charms of the 
Wylye — the sense of beautiful human things hidden from 
sight among the masses of foliage. Yet another lies in 
the character of the villages. Twenty-five or twenty-eight 
of them in a space of twenty miles; yet the impression 
left on the mind is that these small centres of population 
are really few and far between. For not only are they 
small, but of the old, quiet, now almost obsolete type of 
village, so unobtrusive as to affect the mind soothingly, 
like the sight of trees and flowery banks and grazing 
cattle. The churches, too, as is fit, are mostly small and 
ancient and beautiful, half-hidden in their tree-shaded 
churchyards, rich in associations which go back to a time 



148 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

when history fades into myth and legend. Not all, how- 
ever, are of this description; a few are naked, dreary 
little buildings, and of these I will mention one which, 
albeit ancient, has no monuments and no burial-ground. 
This is the church of Tytherington, a small, rustic village, 
which has for neighbours Codford St. Peter on one side 
and Sutton Veny and Norton Bavant on the other. To 
get into this church, where there was nothing but naked 
walls to look at, I had to procure the key from the clerk, 
a nearly blind old man of eighty. He told me that he 
was a shoemaker but could no longer see to make or 
mend shoes ; that as a boy he was a weak, sickly creature, 
and his father, a farm bailiff, made him learn shoemaking 
because he was unfit to work out of doors. "I remember 
this church," he said, "when there was only one service 
each quarter," but, strange to say, he forgot to tell 
me the story of the dog! "What, didn't he tell you 
about the dog?" exclaimed everybody. There was really 
nothing else to tell. 

It happened about a hundred years ago that once, 
after the quarterly service had been held, a dog was 
missed, a small terrier owned by the young wife of a 
farmer of Tytherington named Case. She was fond 
of her dog, and lamented its loss for a little while, then 
forgot all about it. But after three months, when the 
key was once more put into the rusty lock and the door 
thrown open, there was the dog, a living "skelington" it 
was said, dazed by the light of day, but still able to walk ! 
It was supposed that he had kept himself alive by "licking 
the moisture from the walls." The walls, they said, 
were dripping with wet and covered with a thick growth 
of mould. I went back to interrogate the ancient clerk, 



VALE OF THE WYLYE 



149 



and he said that the dog died shortly after its deliverance ; 
Mrs. Case herself told him all about it. She was an old 
woman then, but was always willing to relate the sad 
story of her pet. 

That picture of the starving dog coming out, a living 
skeleton, from the wet, mouldy church, reminds us sharp- 
ly of the changed times we live in and of the days when 
the Church was still sleeping very peacefully, not yet 










jp 



^V** . t '^Jlg*•'^ ft C • 



TITHEBINOTON CM1TR.CH 



■'A*- 



turning uneasily in its bed before opening its eyes; and 
when a comfortable rector of Codford thought it quite 
enough that the people of Tytherington, a mile away, 
should have one service every three months. 

As a fact, the Tytherington dog interested me as 
much as the story of the last Lord Lovell's self-incar- 
ceration in his own house in the neighbouring little village 
of Upton Lovell. He took refuge there from his enemies 
who were seeking his life, and concealed himself so 
effectually that he was never seen again. Centuries later, 



ISO A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

when excavations were made on the site of the ruined 
mansion, a secret chamber was discovered, containing 
a human skeleton seated in a chair at a table, on which 
were books and papers crumbling into dust. 

A volume might be filled with such strange and ro- 
mantic happenings in the little villages of the Wylye, and 
for the natural man they have a lasting fascination ; but 
they invariably relate to great people of their day — 
warriors and statesmen and landowners of old and noble 
lineage, the smallest and meanest you will find being 
clothiers, or merchants, who amassed large fortunes and 
built mansions for themselves and almshouses for the 
aged poor, and, when dead, had memorials placed to them 
in the churches. But of the humble cottagers, the true 
people of the vale who were rooted in the soil, and 
flourished and died like trees in the same place — of these 
no memory exists. We only know that they lived and 
laboured ; that when they died, three or four a year, 
three or four hundred in a century, they were buried in 
the little shady churchyard, each with a green mound 
over him to mark the spot. But in time these "mould- 
ering heaps" subsided, the bodies turned to dust, and 
another and yet other generations were laid in the same 
place among the forgotten dead, to be themselves in turn 
forgotten. Yet I would rather know the histories of these 
humble, unremembered lives than of the great ones of 
the vale who have left us a memory. 

It may be for this reason that I was little interested 
in the manor-houses of the vale. They are plentiful 
enough, some gone to decay or put to various uses; 
others still the homes of luxury, beauty, culture: stately 
rooms, rich fabrics; pictures, books, and manuscripts, 



YALE OF THE WYLYE 151 

gold and silver ware, china and glass, expensive curios, 
suits of armour, ivory and antlers, tiger-skins, stuffed 
goshawks and peacocks' feathers. Houses, in some cases 
built centuries ago, standing half -hidden in beautiful 
wooded grounds, isolated from the village; and even as 
they thus stand apart, sacred from intrusion, so the life 
that is in them does not mix with or form part of the 
true native life. They are to the cottagers of to-day 
what the Roman villas were to the native population of 
some eighteen centuries ago. This will seem incredible 
to some: to me, an untrammelled person, familiar in 
both hall and cottage, the distance between them appears 
immense. 

A reader well acquainted with the valley will probably 
laugh to be told that the manor-house which most inter- 
ested me was that of Knook, a poor little village between 
Heytesbury and Upton Lovell. Its ancient and towerless 
little church with rough, grey walls is, if possible, even 
more desolate-looking than that of Tytherington. In my 
hunt for the key to open it I disturbed a quaint old man, 
another octogenarian, picturesque in a vast white beard, 
who told me he was a thatcher, or had been one before 
the evil days came when he could work no more and was 
compelled to seek parish relief. "You must go to tne 
manor-house for the key," he told me. A strange place 
in which to look for the key, and it was stranger still to 
see the house, close to the church, and so like it that but 
for the small cross on the roof of the latter one could 
not have known which was the sacred building. First a 
monks' house, it fell at the Reformation to some greedy 
gentleman who made it his dwelling, and doubtless in 
later times it was used as a farm-house. Now a house 



152 



!A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



most desolate, dirty, and neglected, with cracks in the 
walls which threaten ruin, standing in a wilderness of 
weeds, tenanted by a poor working-man whose wages 
are twelve shillings a week, and his wife and eight small 
children. The rent is eighteen-pence a week — probably 
the lowest-rented manor-house in England, though it is 
not very rare to find such places tenanted by labourers. 

But let us look at the true cottages. There are, I 
imagine, few places in England where the humble homes 




i5BV ^^"''lr 



^S^^t?*^ 



KNOOK CHURCH «| MANOR. HOUSE OH THE WVLYE 



of the people have so great a charm. Undoubtedly they 
are darker inside, and not so convenient to live in as 
the modern box-shaped, red-brick, slate-roofed cottages, 
which have spread a wave of ugliness over the country; 
but they do not offend — they please the eye. They are 
smaller than the modern-built habitations; they are 
weathered and coloured by sun and wind and rain and 
many lowly vegetable forms to a harmony with nature. 
They appear related to the trees amid which they stand, 
to the river and meadows, to the sloping downs at the 
side, and to the sky and clouds over all. And, most 
delightful feature, they stand among, and are wrapped 



VALE OF THE WYLYE 153 

in, flowers as in a garment — rose and vine and creeper 
and clematis. They are mostly thatched, but some have 
tiled roofs, their deep, dark red clouded and stained with 
lichen and moss ; and these roofs, too, have their flowers 
in summer. They are grown over with yellow stonecrop, 
that bright cheerful flower that smiles down at you from 
the lowly roof above the door, with such an inviting 
expression, so delighted to see you no matter how poor 
and worthless a person you may be or what mischief you 
may have been at, that you begin to understand the sig- 
nificance of a strange vernacular name of this plant — 
Welcome-home-husband-though-never-so-drunk. 

But its garden flowers, clustering and nestling round 
it, amid which its feet are set — they are to me the best 
of all flowers. These are the flowers we know and 
remember for ever. The old, homely, cottage-garden 
blooms, so old that they have entered the soul. The big 
house garden, or gardener's garden, with everything 
growing in it I hate, but these I love — fragrant gilly- 
flower and pink and clove-smelling carnation ; wallflower, 
abundant periwinkle, sweet-william, larkspur, love-in-a- 
mist, and love-lies-bleeding, old-woman's-nightcap, and 
kiss-me-John-at-the-garden-gate, sometimes called pansy. 
And best of all and in greatest profusion, that flower of 
flowers, the marigold. 

How the townsman, town born and bred, regards this 
flower, I do not know. He is, in spite of all the time 
I have spent in his company, a comparative stranger to 
me — the one living creature on the earth who does not 
greatly interest me. Some over-populated planet in our 
system discovered a way to relieve itself by discharging 
its superfluous millions on our globe — a pale people with 



154 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

hurrying feet and eager, restless minds, who live apart 
in monstrous, crowded camps, like wood ants that go 
not out to forage for themselves — six millions of them 
crowded together in one camp alone! I have lived in 
these colonies, years and years, never losing the sense of 
captivity, of exile, ever conscious of my burden, taking 
no interest in the doings of that innumerable multitude, 
its manifold interests, its ideals and philosophy, its arts 
and pleasures. What, then, does it matter how they 
regard this common orange-coloured flower with a strong 
smell? For me it has an atmosphere, a sense or sugges- 
tion of something immeasurably remote and very beau- 
tiful — an event, a place, a dream perhaps, which has left 
no distinct image, but only this feeling unlike all others, 
imperishable, and not to be described except by the one 
word Marigold. 

But when my sight wanders away from the flower 
to others blooming with it — to all those which I have 
named and to the taller ones, so tall that they reach 
half-way up, and some even quite up, to the eaves of 
the lowly houses they stand against — Hollyhocks and 
peonies and crystalline white lilies with powdery gold 
inside, and the common sunflower — I begin to perceive 
that they all possess something of that same magical 
quality. 

These taller blooms remind me that the evening prim- 
rose, long naturalized in our hearts, is another common 
and very delightful cottage-garden flower ; also that here, 
on the Wylye, there is yet another stranger from the same 
western world which is fast winning our affections. This 
is the golden-rod, grandly beautiful in its great, yellow, 
plume-like tufts. But it is not quite right to call the tufts 



VALE OF THE WYLYE 



155 



yellow: they are green, thickly powdered with the minute 
golden florets. There is no flower in England like it, 
and it is a happiness to know that it promises to establish 
itself with us as a wild flower. 

Where the village lies low in the valley and the cottage 
is near the water, there are wild blooms, too, which 
almost rival those of the garden in beauty — water agri- 
mony and comfrey with ivory-white and dim purple blos- 
soms, purple and yellow loosestrife and gem-like, water 




WSHrORD on the WVXYE. 



^is^^as: 



forget-me-not ; all these mixed with reeds and sedges and 
water-grasses, forming a fringe or border to the potato 
or cabbage patch, dividing it from the stream. 

But now I have exhausted the subject of the flowers, 
and enumerated and dwelt upon the various other com- 
ponents of the scene, it comes to me that I have not yet 
said the right thing and given the Wylye its characteristic 
expression. In considering the flowers we lose sight of 
the downs, and so in occupying ourselves with the details 
we miss the general effect. Let me then, once more, 



156 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

before concluding this chapter, try to capture the secret 
of this little river. 

There are other chalk streams in Wiltshire and Hamp- 
shire and Dorset — swift crystal currents that play all 
summer long with the floating poa grass fast held in their 
pebbly beds, flowing through smooth downs, with small 
ancient churches in their green villages, and pretty 
thatched cottages smothered in flowers — which yet do not 
produce the same effect as the Wylye. Not Avon for 
all its beauty, nor Itchen, nor Test. Wherein, then, 
does the "Wylye bourne" differ from these others, and 
what is its special attraction? It was only when I set 
myself to think about it, to analyse the feeling in my 
own mind, that I discovered the secret — that is, in my 
own case, for of its effect on others I cannot say any- 
thing. What I discovered was that the various elements 
of interest, all of which may be found in other chalk- 
stream valleys, are here concentrated, or comprised in a 
limited space, and seen together produce a combined 
effect on the mind. It is the narrowness of the valley and 
the nearness of the high downs standing over it on either 
side, with, at some points, the memorials of antiquity 
carved on their smooth surfaces, the barrows and 
lynchetts or terraces, and the vast green earth-works 
crowning their summit. Up here on the turf, even with 
the lark singing his shrill music in the blue heavens, you 
are with the prehistoric dead, yourself for the time one 
of that innumerable, unsubstantial multitude, invisible 
in the sun, so that the sheep travelling as they graze, and 
the shepherd following them, pass through their ranks 
without suspecting their presence. And from that eleva- 
tion you look down upon the life of to-day — the visible 



VALE OF THE WYLYE 157 

life, so brief in the individual, which, like the swift silver 
stream beneath, yet flows on continuously from age to 
age and for ever. And even as you look down you hear, 
at that distance, the bell of the little hidden church tower 
telling the hour of noon, and quickly following, a shout 
of freedom and joy from many shrill voices of children 
just released from school. Woke to life by those sounds, 
and drawn down by them, you may sit to rest or sun 
yourself on the stone table of a tomb overgrown on its 
sides with moss, the two-century-old inscription well- 
nigh obliterated, in the little grass-grown, flowery church- 
yard which serves as village green and playground in 
that small centre of life, where the living and the dead 
exist in a neighbourly way together. For it is not here 
as in towns, where the dead are away and out of mind 
and the past cut off. And if after basking too long in 
the sun in that tree-sheltered spot you go into the little 
church to cool yourself, you will probably find in a dim 
corner not far from the altar a stone effigy of one of 
an older time; a knight in armour, perhaps a crusader 
with legs crossed, lying on his back, dimly seen in the 
dim light, with perhaps a coloured sunbeam on his up- 
turned face. For this little church where the villagers 
worship is very old ; Norman on Saxon foundations ; and 
before they were ever laid there may have been a temple 
to some ancient god at that spot, or a Roman villa per- 
haps. For older than Saxon foundations are found in 
the vale, and mosaic floors, still beautiful after lying 
buried so long. 

All this — the far-removed events and periods in time 
— are not in the conscious mind when we are in the vale 
or when we are looking down on it from above: the 



158 \A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

mind is occupied with nothing but visible nature. Thus, 
when I am sitting on the tomb, listening to the various 
sounds of life about me, attentive to the flowers and bees 
and butterflies, to man or woman or child taking a short 
cut through the churchyard, exchanging a few words 
with them ; or when I am by the water close by, watching 
a little company of graylings, their delicately-shaded, 
silver-grey scales distinctly seen as they lie in the crystal 
current watching for flies; or when I listen to the per- 
petual musical talk and song combined of a family of 
green-finches in the alders or willows, my mind is engaged 
with these things. But if one is familiar with the vale; 
if one has looked with interest and been deeply impressed 
with the signs and memorials of past life and of antiquity 
everywhere present and forming part of the scene, some- 
thing of it and of all that it represents remains in the 
subconscious mind to give a significance and feeling to 
the scene, which affects us here more than in most places ; 
and that, I take it, is the special charm of this little valley. 




?%» J v ■> 



n 






—'«'' 




CHAPTER XIV 
A Sheep-Dog's Life 

Watch — His visits to a dew-pond — David and his dog 
Monk — Watch goes to David's assistance — Caleb's 
new master objects to his dog — Watch and the corn- 
crake — Watch plays with rabbits and guinea-pigs — 
Old Nance the rook-scarer — The lost pair of specta- 
cles — Watch in decline — Grey hairs in animals — A 
grey mole — Last days of Watch — A shepherd on old 
sheep-dogs 

Perhaps the most interesting of the many sheep-dog 
histories the shepherd related was that of Watch, a dog 
he had at Winterbourne Bishop for three years before 
he migrated to Warminster. Watch, he said, was more 
"like a Christian," otherwise a reasonable being, than 
any other dog he had owned. He was exceedingly active, 
and in hot weather suffered more from heat than most 
dogs. Now the only accessible water when they were 
out on the down was in the mist-pond about a quarter 
of a mile from his "liberty," as he called that portion 

159 



160 'A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

of the down on which he was entitled to pasture his sheep. 
When Watch could stand his sufferings no longer, he 
would run to his master, and sitting at his feet look up 
at his face and emit a low, pleading whine. 

"What be you wanting, Watch — a drink or a swim?" 
the shepherd would say, and Watch, cocking up his ears, 
would repeat the whine. 

"Very well, go to the pond," Bawcombe would say, 
and off Watch would rush, never pausing until he got 
to the water, and dashing in he would swim round and 
round, lapping the water as he bathed. 

At the side of the pond there was a large, round sarsen- 
stone, and invariably on coming out of his bath Watch 
would jump upon it, and with his four feet drawn up 
close together would turn round and round, surveying 
the country from that elevation; then jumping down he 
would return in all haste to his duties. 

Another anecdote, which relates to the Winterbourne 
Bishop period, is a somewhat painful one, and is partly 
about Monk, the sheep-dog already described as a hunter 
of foxes, and his tragic end. Caleb had worked him for 
a time, but when he came into possession of Watch he 
gave Monk to his young brother David, who was under- 
shepherd on the same farm. 

One morning Caleb was with the ewes in a field, when 
David, who was in charge of the lambs two or three 
fields away, came to him looking very strange — very 
much put out. 

"What are you here for — what's wrong with 'ee?" 
demanded Caleb. 

"Nothing's wrong," returned the other. 

"Where's Monk then?" asked Caleb. 



A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE 161 

"Dead," said David. 

"Dead! How's he dead?" 

"I killed 'n. He wouldn't mind me and made me 
mad, and I up with my stick and gave him one crack on 
the head and it killed 'n." 

"You killed 'n!" exclaimed Caleb. "An' you come 
here an' tell I nothing's wrong! Is that a right way to 
speak of such a thing as that? What be you thinking 
of? And what be you going to do with the lambs?" 

"I'm just going back to them — I'm going to do without 
a dog. I'm going to put them in the rape and they'll 
be all right." 

"What ! put them in the rape and no dog to help 'ee ?" 
cried the other. "You are not doing things right, but 
master mustn't pay for it. Take Watch to help 'ee — I 
must do without 'n this morning." 

"No, I'll not take 'n," he said, for he was angry be- 
cause he had done an evil thing and he would have no 
one, man or dog, to help him. "I'll do better without a 
dog," he said, and marched off. 

Caleb cried after him: "If you won't have the dog 
don't let the lambs suffer but do as I tell 'ee. Don't you 
let 'em bide in the rape more 'n ten minutes; then chase 
them out, and let 'em stand twenty minutes to half an 
hour ; then let them in another ten minutes and out again 
for twenty minutes, then let them go back and feed in 
it quietly, for the danger '11 be over. If you don't do as 
I tell 'ee you'll have many blown." 

David listened, then without a word went his way. 
But Caleb was still much troubled in his mind. How 
would he get that flock of hungry lambs out of the rape 
without a dog? And presently he determined to send 



162 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Watch, or try to send him, to save the situation. David 
had been gone half an hour when he called the dog, and 
pointing in the direction he had taken he cried, "David 
wants 'ee — go to Dave." 

Watch looked at him and listened, then bounded away, 
and after running full speed about fifty yards stopped 
to look back to make sure he was doing the right thing. 
"Go to Dave," shouted Caleb once more ; and away went 
Watch again, and arriving at a very high gate at the 
end of the field dashed at and tried two or three times 
to get over it, first by jumping, then by climbing, and 
falling back each time. But by and by he managed to 
force his way through the thick hedge and was gone 
from sight. 

When David came back that evening he was in a 
different mood, and said that Watch had saved him 
from a great misfortune: he could never have got the 
lambs out by himself, as they were mad for the rape. 
For some days after this Watch served two masters. 
Caleb would take him to his ewes, and after a while 
would say, "Go — Dave wants 'ee," and away Watch 
would go to the other shepherd and flock. 

When Bawcombe had taken up his new place at Dove- 
ton, his master, Mr. Ellerby, watched him for a while 
with sharp eyes, but he was soon convinced that he had 
not made a mistake in engaging a head-shepherd twenty- 
five miles away without making the usual inquiries but 
merely on the strength of something heard casually in 
conversation about this man. But while more than satis- 
fied with the man he remained suspicious of the dog. 
"I'm afraid that dog of yours must hurt the sheep," he 
would say, and he even advised him to change him for 



A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE 163 

one that worked in a quieter manner. Watch was too 
excitable, too impetuous — he could not go after the sheep 
in that violent way and grab them as he did without 
injuring them with his teeth. 

"He did never bite a sheep in his life," Bawcombe 
assured him, and eventually he was able to convince his 
master that Watch could make a great show of biting 




the sheep without doing them the least hurt — that it was 
actually against his nature to bite or injure anything. 

One day in the late summer, when the corn had been 
cut but not carried, Bawcombe was with his flock on 
the edge of a newly reaped cornfield in a continuous, 
heavy rain, when he spied his master coming to him. 
He was in a very light summer suit and straw hat, and 
had no umbrella or other protection from the pouring 
rain. "What be wrong with master to-day?" said Baw- 
combe. "He's tarrably upset to be out like this in such 
a rain in a straw hat and no coat." 

Mr. Ellerby had by that time got into the habit when 
troubled in his mind of going out to his shepherd to 
have a long talk with him. Not a talk about his trouble 



164 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

— that was some secret bitterness in his heart — but just 
about the sheep and other ordinary topics, and the talk, 
Caleb said, would seem to do him good. But this habit 
he had got into was observed by others, and the farm- 
men would say, "Something's wrong to-day — the mas- 
ter's gone off to the head-shepherd." 

When he came to where Bawcombe was standing, in 
a poor shelter by the side of a fence, he at once started 
talking on indifferent subjects, standing there quite un- 
concerned, as if he didn't even know that it was raining, 
though his thin clothes were wet through, and the water 
coming through his straw hat was running in streaks 
down his face. By and by he became interested in the 
dog's movements, playing about in the rain among the 
stooks. "What has he got in his mouth?" he asked 
presently. 

"Come here, Watch," the shepherd called, and when 
Watch came in bent down and took a corn-crake from 
his mouth. He had found the bird hiding in one of the 
stooks and had captured without injuring it. 

"Why, it's alive — the dog hasn't hurt it," said the 
farmer, taking it in his hands to examine it. 

"Watch never hurted any creature yet," said Baw- 
combe. He caught things just for his own amusement, 
but never injured them — he always let them go again. 
He would hunt mice in the fields, and when he captured 
one he would play with it like a cat, tossing it from him, 
then dashing after and recapturing it. Finally he would 
let it go. He played with rabbits in the same way, and 
if you took a rabbit from him and examined it you would 
find it quite uninjured. 

The farmer said it was wonderful — he had never 



A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE 165 

heard of a case like it before; and talking of Watch he 
succeeded in forgetting the trouble in his mind which 
had sent him out in the rain in his thin clothes and straw- 
hat, and he went away in a cheerful mood. 

Caleb probably forgot to mention during this conver- 
sation with his master that in most cases when Watch 
captured a rabbit he took it to his master and gave it 
into his hands, as much as to say, Here is a very big 
sort of field-mouse I have caught, rather difficult to 
manage — perhaps you can do something with it? 

The shepherd had many other stories about this curious 
disposition of his dog. When he had been some months 
in his new place his brother David followed him to the 
Wylye, having obtained a place as shepherd on a farm 
adjoining Mr. Ellerby's. His cottage was a little out 
of the village and had some ground to it, with a nice 
lawn or green patch. David was fond of keeping animal 
pets — birds in cages, and rabbits and guinea-pigs in 
hutches, the last so tame that he would release them on 
the grass to see them play with one another. When 
Watch first saw these pets he was very much attracted, 
and wanted to get to them, and after a good deal of 
persuasion on the part of Caleb, David one day consented 
to take them out and put them on the grass in the dog's 
presence. They were a little alarmed at first, but in a 
surprisingly short time made the discovery that this 
particular dog was not their enemy but a playmate. He 
rolled on the grass among them, and chased them round 
and round, and sometimes caught and pretended to 
worry them, and they appeared to think it very good 
fun. 

"Watch," said Bawcombe, "in the fifteen years I had 



166 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

'n, never killed and never hurt a creature, no, not even 
a leetel mouse, and when he caught anything 'twere only 
to play with it." 

Watch comes into a story of an old woman employed 
at the farm at this period. She had been in the War- 
minster workhouse for a short time, and had there heard 
that a daughter of a former mistress in another part 
of the county had long been married and was now the 
mistress of Doveton Farm, close by. Old Nance there- 
upon obtained her release and trudged to Doveton, and 
one very rough, cold day presented herself at the farm 
to beg for something to do which would enable her to 
keep herself. If there was nothing for her she must, 
she said, go back and end her days in the Warminster 
workhouse. Mrs. Ellerby remembered and pitied her, 
and going in to her husband begged him earnestly to 
find some place on the farm for the forlorn old creature. 
He did not see what could be done for her ; they already 
had one old woman on their hands, who mended sacks 
and did a few other trifling things, but for another old 
woman there would be nothing to do. Then he went in 
and had a good long look at her, revolving the matter 
in his mind, anxious to please his wife, and finally, he 
asked her if she could scare the crows. He could think 
of nothing else. Of course she could scare crows — it 
was the very thing for her! Well, he said, she could 
go and look after the swedes; the rooks had just taken 
a liking to them, and even if she was not very active 
perhaps she would be able to keep them off. 

Old Nance got up to go and begin her duties at once. 
Then the farmer, looking at her clothes, said he would 
give her something more to protect her from the weather 



A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE 167 

on such a bleak day. He got her an old felt hat, a big 
old, frieze overcoat, and a pair of old leather leggings. 
When she had put on these somewhat cumbrous things, 
and had tied her hat firmly on with a strip of cloth, and 
fastened the coat at the waist with a cord, she was told 
to go to the head-shepherd and ask him to direct her to 
the field where the rooks were troublesome. Then when 
she was setting out the farmer called her back and gave 
her an ancient, rusty gun to scare the birds. "It isn't 
loaded," he said, with a grim smile. "I don't allow 
powder and shot, but if you'll point it at them they'll 
fly fast enough." 

Thus arrayed and armed she set forth, and Caleb 
seeing her approach at a distance was amazed at her 
grotesque appearance, and even more amazed still when 
she explained who and what she was and asked him to 
direct her to the field of swedes. 

Some hours later the farmer came to him and asked 
him casually if he had seen an old gallus-crow about. 

"Well," replied the shepherd, "I seen an old woman 
in man's coat and things, with an old gun, and I did tell 
she where to bide." 

"I think it will be rather cold for the old body in that 
field," said the farmer. "I'd like you to get a couple 
of padded hurdles and put them up for a shelter for 
her." 

And in the shelter of the padded or thatched hurdles, 
by the hedge-side, old Nance spent her days keeping 
guard over the turnips, and afterwards something else 
was found for her to do, and in the meanwhile she lodged 
in Caleb's cottage and became like one of the family. 
She was fond of the children and of the dog, and Watch 



168 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

became so much attached to her that had it not been for 
his duties with the flock he would have attended her all 
day in the fields to help her with the crows. 

Old Nance had two possessions she greatly prized — 
a book and a pair of spectacles, and it was her custom 
to spend the day sitting, spectacles on nose and book in 
hand, reading among the turnips. Her spectacles were 
so "tarrable" good that they suited all old eyes, and when 
this was discovered they were in great request in the 
village, and every person who wanted to do a bit of fine 
sewing or anything requiring young vision in old eyes 
would borrow them for the purpose. One day the old 
woman returned full of trouble from the fields — she had 
lost her spectacles ; she must, she thought, have lent them 
to some one in the village on the previous evening and 
then forgotten all about it. But no one had them, and 
the mysterious loss of the spectacles was discussed and 
lamented by everybody. A day or two later Caleb came 
through the turnips on his way home, the dog at his 
heels, and when he got to his cottage Watch came round 
and placed himself square before his master and deposited 
the lost spectacles at his feet. He had found them in 
the turnip-field over a mile from home, and though but 
a dog he remembered that he had seen them on people's 
noses and in their hands, and knew that they must there- 
fore be valuable — not to himself, but to that larger and 
more important kind of dog that goes about on its hind 
legs. 

There is always a sad chapter in the life-history of a 
dog; it is the last one, which tells of his decline; and 
it is ever saddest in the case of the sheep-dog, because he 
has lived closer to man and has served him every day of 



A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE 169 

his life with all his powers, all his intelligence, in the 
one useful and necessary work he is fitted for or which 
we have found for him to do. The hunting and the pet, 
or parasite, dogs — the "dogs for sport and pleasure" — 
though one in species with him are not like beings of 
the same order; they are like professional athletes and 
performers, and smart or fashionable people compared 
to those who do the work of the world — who feed us 
and clothe us. We are accustomed to speak of dogs 
generally as the servants and the friends of man; it is 
only of the sheep-dog that this can be said with absolute 
truth. Not only is he the faithful servant of the solitary 
man who shepherds his flock, but the dog's companion- 
ship is as much to him as that of a fellow-being would be. 
Before his long and strenuous life was finished, Watch, 
originally jet-black without a spot, became quite grey, 
the greyness being most marked on the head, which 
became at last almost white. 

It is undoubtedly the case that some animals, like 
men, turn grey with age, and Watch when 15 was rela- 
tively as old as a man at 65 or 70. But grey hairs do 
not invariably come with age, even in our domestic 
animals, which are more subject to this change than 
those in a state of nature. But we are never so well 
able to judge of this in the case of wild animals, as in 
most cases their lives end prematurely. 

The shepherd related a curious instance in a mole. 
He once noticed mole-heaps of a peculiar kind in a field 
of sainfoin, and it looked to him as if this mole worked 
in a way of his own, quite unlike the others. The hills 
he threw up were a good distance apart, and so large 
that you could fill a bushel measure with the mould 



170 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

from any one of them. He noticed that this mole went 
on burrowing every day in the same manner; every 
morning there were new chains or ranges of the huge 
mounds. The runs were very deep, as he found when 
setting a mole-trap — over two feet beneath the surface. 
He set his trap, filling the deep hole he had made with 
sods, and on opening it next day he found his mole and 
was astonished at its great size. He took no measure- 
ments, but it was bigger, he affirmed, than he could have 
believed it possible for a mole to be. And it was grey 
instead of black, the grey hairs being so abundant on 
the head as to make it almost white, as in the case of 
old Watch. He supposed that it was a very old mole, 
that it was a more powerful digger than most of its 
kind, and had perhaps escaped death so long on account 
of its strength and of its habit of feeding deeper in the 
earth than the others. 

To return to Watch. His hearing and eyesight failed 
as he grew older until he was practically blind and too 
deaf to hear any word given in the ordinary way. But 
he continued strong as ever on his legs, and his mind 
was not decayed, nor was he in the least tired. On the 
contrary, he was always eager to work, and as his blind- 
ness and deafness had made him sharper in other ways 
he was still able to make himself useful with the sheep. 
Whenever the hurdles were shifted to a fresh place and 
the sheep had to be kept in a corner of the enclosure 
until the new place was ready for them, it was old Watch's 
duty to keep them from breaking away. He could not 
see nor hear, but in some mysterious way he knew when 
they tried to get out, even if it was but one. Possibly 
the slight vibration of the ground informed him of the 



A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE 171 

movement and the direction as well. He would make a 
dash and drive the sheep back, then run up and down 
before the flock until all was quiet again. But at last 
it became painful to witness his efforts, especially when 
the sheep were very restless, and incessantly trying to 
break away ; and Watch finding them so hard to restrain 
would grow angry and rush at them with such fury 
that he would come violently against the hurdles at one 
side, then getting up, howling with pain, he would dash 
to the other side, when he would strike the hurdles there 
and cry out with pain once more. 

It could not be allowed to go on ; yet Watch could not 
endure to be deprived of his work; if left at home he 
would spend the time whining and moaning, praying to 
be allowed to go to the flock, until at last his master 
with a very heavy heart was compelled to have him put 
to death. 

This is indeed almost invariably the end of a sheep- 
dog; however zealous and faithful he may have been, 
and however much valued and loved, he must at last 
be put to death. I related the story of this dog to a 
shepherd in the very district where Watch had lived and 
served his master so well — one who has been head- 
shepherd for upwards of forty years at Imber Court, 
the principal farm at the small downland village of 
Imber. He told me that during all his shepherding years 
he had never owned a dog which had passed out of his 
hands to another ; every dog had been acquired as a pup 
and trained by himself; and he had been very fond of 
his dogs, but had always been compelled to have them 
shot in the end. Not because he would have found them 
too great a burden when they had become too old and 



172 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



their senses decayed, but because it was painful to see 
them in their decline, perpetually craving to be at their 
old work with the sheep, incapable of doing it any longer, 
yet miserable if kept from it. 





CHAPTER XV 
Concerning Cats 

A cat that caught trout — Cat killed by a passing train — 
— Gip's history and wildness — Gipsies' cats — Sir 
Three cats — A cat's disposition — A notable rat-killer 
Henry Wyatt's cat — A partridge-hunting cat — A cat 
that brought in rabbits — Story of a Fonthill Bishop 
cat — An eccentric farmer and his eleven cats — A 
child and her kittens — The cat's fatal weakness — 
Anecdotes 

One of the shepherd's most interesting memories of his 
Doveton period was of a cat they possessed, which was 
greatly admired. He was a very large, handsome, finely 
marked tabby, with a thick coat, and always appeared 
very well nourished but never wanted to be fed. He 
was a nice-tempered, friendly animal, and whenever he 
came in he appeared pleased at seeing the inmates of 
the house, and would go from one to another, rubbing his 

173 



174 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

sides against their legs and purring aloud with satisfac- 
tion. Then they would give him food, and he would 
take a morsel or two or lap up as much milk as would 
fill a teaspoon and leave the rest. He was not hungry, 
and it always appeared, they said, as if he smelt at or 
tasted the food they put down for him just to please 
them. Everybody in the village admired their cat for 
his great size, his beauty, and gentle, friendly disposition, 
but how he fed himself was a mystery to all, since no 
one had ever detected him trying to catch anything out 
of doors. In that part of the Wylye valley there were 
no woods for him to hunt in ; they also noticed that when, 
out of doors, the small birds, anxious and angered at 
his presence, would flit, uttering their cries, close to him, 
he paid no attention. The only thing they discovered 
about his outdoor life by watching him was that he had 
the habit of going to the railway track, then recently 
constructed, from Westbury to Salisbury, which ran 
near their cottage, and would there seat himself on one 
of the rails and remain for a long time gazing fixedly 
before him as if he found it a pleasure to keep his eyes 
on the long, glittering metal line. 

At the back of the cottage there was a piece of waste 
ground extending to the river, with a small, old, ruinous 
barn standing on it a few yards from the bank. Between 
the barn and the stream the ground was overgrown with 
rank weeds, and here one day Caleb came by chance upon 
his cat eating something among the weeds — a good-sized 
fresh-caught trout ! On examining the ground he found 
it littered with the heads, fins, and portions of backbones 
of the trout their cat had been feeding on every day since 
they had been in possession of him. They did not destroy 



CONCERNING CATS 175 

their favourite, nor tell anyone of their discovery, but 
they watched him and found that it was his habit to 
bring a trout every day to that spot, but how he caught 
his fish was never known. 

Eventually their cat came to a tragic end, as all Wylye 
anglers will be pleased to hear. He was found on the 
railway track, at the spot where he had the habit of 
sitting, crushed as flat as a pancake. It was thought 
that while sitting on the rail in his usual way he had 
become so absorbed at the sight of the straight, shining 
line that the noise and vibration of the approaching train 
failed to arouse him in time to save himself. It seemed 
strange to them that a creature so very much alive and 
quick to escape danger should have met its death in this 
way; and what added to the wonder was that another 
cat of the village was found on the line crushed by a 
train shortly afterwards. Probably the sight of the shin- 
ing rail gazed at too long and fixedly had produced a 
hypnotic effect on the animal's brain and made it power- 
less to escape. 

It is rather an odd coincidence that in the village inn 
where I am writing a portion of this book, including the 
present chapter, there should be three cats, unlike one 
another in appearance and habits as three animals of 
different and widely separated species, one of them with 
a great resemblance to the shepherd's picture of his 
Doveton animal. All three were strays, which the land- 
lady, who has a tender heart, took in when they were 
starving, and made pets of; and all are beautiful. One 
has Persian blood in him ; a long-haired, black and brown 
animal with gold-coloured eyes; playful as a kitten, 
incessantly active, fond of going for a walk with some 



176 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



inmate of the house, and when no one — cat or human 
being — will have any more of him you will see him in 
the garden stalking a fly, or lying on his back on the 
ground under a beech-tree striking with his claws or 
catching at something invisible in the air — motes in the 
sunbeam. The second is a large, black cat with white 




WWTERBOCBNE EARLS 

O" we BOVRNC 

collar and muzzle and sea-green eyes, and is of an indo- 
lent, luxurious disposition, lying coiled up by the hour 
on the most comfortable cushion it can find. The last 
is Gip, a magnificent creature a third bigger than an 
averaged-sized cat — as large and powerfully built as the 
British wild cat, a tabby with opaline eyes, which show 
a pale green colour in some lights. These singular eyes, 
when I first saw this animal, almost startled me with 
their wild, savage expression; nor was it a mere decep- 
tive appearance, as I soon found. I never looked at this 
animal without finding these panther or lynx eyes fixed 



CONCERNING CATS 177 

with a fierce intensity on me, and no sooner would I 
look towards him than he would crouch down, flatten 
his ears, and continue to watch my every movement as 
if apprehending a sudden attack on his life. It was 
many days before he allowed me to come near him with- 
out bounding away and vanishing, and not for two or 
three weeks would he suffer me to put a hand on him. 

But the native wildness and suspicion in him could 
never be wholly overcome; it continued to show itself 
on occasions even after I had known him for months, 
and had won his confidence, and when it seemed that, 
in his wild cat, conditional way, he had accepted my 
friendship. He became lame, having injured one of his 
forelegs while hunting, and as the weather was cold 
he was pleased to spend his inactive and suffering time 
on the hearth-rug in my sitting-room. I found that 
rubbing warm, melted butter on his injured leg appeared 
to give him relief, and after the massaging and buttering 
he would lick the leg vigorously for ten or fifteen minutes, 
occasionally purring with satisfaction. Yet if I made 
any sudden movement, or rustled the paper in my hand, 
he would instantly spring up from his cushion at my feet 
and dart away to the door to make his escape; then, 
finding the door closed, he would sit down, recover his 
domesticity and return to my feet. 

Yet this cat had been taken in as a kitten and had 
already lived some two or three years in the house, seeing 
many people and fed regularly with the others every day. 
It is not, however, very rare to meet with a cat of this 
disposition — the cat pure and simple, as nature made 
it, without that little tameness on the surface, or veneer 
of domesticity which life with man has laid on it. 



178 'A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Gip is the most inveterate rat-killer I have ever known. 
He is never seen hunting other creatures, not even mice, 
although it is probable that he does kill and devour them 
on the spot, but he has the habit of bringing in the rats 
he captures; and as a day seldom passes on which he is 
not seen with one, and as sometimes two or three are 
brought in during the night, he cannot destroy fewer 
than three hundred to four hundred rats in the year. 

Let anyone who knows the destructive powers of the 
rat consider what that means in an agricultural village, 
and what an advantage it is to the farmers to have their 
rickyards and barns policed day and night by such an 
animal. For the whole village is his hunting-ground. 
His owner says that he is "worth his weight in gold." 
I should say that he is worth much more; that the 
equivalent in cash of his weight in purest gold, though 
he is big and heavy, would not be more than the value 
of the grain and other foodstuffs he saves from destruc- 
tion in a single year. 

He invariably brings in his rats alive to release and 
play with them in an old, stone-paved yard, and after 
a little play he kills them, and if they are full-grown 
he leaves them; but when young he devours them or 
allows the other cats to have them. 

Gip has a somewhat remarkable history. The village 
has always been a favourite resort of gipsies, and it 
happened that once when a party of gipsies had gone 
away it was discovered that they had left a litter of six 
kittens behind, and it greatly troubled the village mind 
to know what was to be done with them. "Why didn't 
we drown them? Oh, no, we couldn't do that," they 
said, "they were several weeks old and past the time for 



CONCERNING CATS 179 

drowning." However, some one who kept ferrets turned 
up and kindly said he would take them to give to his 
ferrets, and everybody was satisfied to have the matter 
disposed of in that way. But it was a rather disgusting 
way, for although it seems quite natural to give little, 
living rodents to ferrets to be sucked of their warm 
blood, it goes against one's feelings to cast young cats 
to the pink-eyed beast ; for the cat is a carnivorous crea- 
ture, too, and not only so but is infinitely more beautiful 
and intelligent than the ferret and higher in the organic 
scale. However, these ideas did not prevail in the village, 
and the six kittens were taken; but they proved to be 
exceedingly vigorous and fierce for kittens, as if they 
knew what was going to be done to them: they fought 
and scratched, and eventually two, the biggest and fiercest 
of them, succeeded in making their escape, and by and 
by one of them was found on the premises at the inn — 
a refuge for all creatures in distress — which thereupon 
became its home. 

Gipsies, I was told, are fond of keeping cats, and 
their cats are supposed to be the best ratters. As this 
was news to me I inquired of some gipsies in the neigh- 
bourhood, and they told me that it was true — they loved 
cats. They love lurchers, too, and no doubt they find 
cats with a genius for hunting very profitable pets. But 
how curiously varied hunting cats are in their tastes! 
You seldom find two quite alike. I have described one 
that was an accomplished trout-catcher, in spite of the 
ancient Gaelic proverb and universal saying that the 
cat loves fish but fears to wet its feet ; also another who 
is exclusively a rat-killer. And here I recall an old story 
of a cat (an immortal puss) who only hunted pigeons. 



180 



'A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



This tells that Sir Henry Wyatt was imprisoned in the 
Tower of London by Richard III, and was cruelly treated, 
having no bed to sleep on in his cell and scarcely food 
enough to keep him alive. One winter night, when he 
was half dead with cold, a cat appeared in his cell, having 
come down the chimney, and was very friendly, and 
slept curled up on his chest, thus keeping him warm all 
night. In the morning it vanished up the chimney, but 




appeared later with a pigeon, which it gave to Sir Henry, 
and then again departed. When the jailer appeared and 
repeated that he durst not bring more than the few mor- 
sels of food provided, Sir Henry then asked, "Wilt thou 
dress any I provide?" This the jailer promised to do, 
for he pitied his prisoner, and taking the pigeon had 
it dressed and cooked for him. The cat continued bring- 
ing pigeons every day, and the jailer, thinking they were 
sent miraculously, continued to cook them, so that Sir 
Henry fared well, despite the order which Richard gave 
later, that no food at all was to be provided. He was 



CONCERNING CATS 181 

getting impatient of his prisoner's power to keep alive 
on very little food, and he didn't want to behead him — 
he wanted him to die naturally. Thus in the end Sir 
Henry outlived the tyrant and was set free, and the 
family preserve the story to this day. It is classed as 
folk-lore, but there is no reason to prevent one from 
accepting it as literal truth. 

It is a well-known habit of some hunting, or poaching, 
cats to bring their captives to their master or mistress. 
I have met with scores — I might say with hundreds — 
of such cases. I remember an old gaucho, a neighbour 
of mine in South America, who used to boast that he 
usually had a spotted tinamou — the partridge of the 
pampas — for his dinner every day, brought in by his 
cat. Even in England, where partridges are not so 
abundant or easily taken, there are clever partridge- 
hunting cats. I remember one, a very fine white cat, 
owned by a woodman I once lodged with in Savernake 
Forest, who was in the habit of bringing in a partridge 
and would place it on the kitchen floor and keep guard 
over it until the woodman's wife came to take it up and 
put it away for the Sunday's dinner. A lady friend 
told me of a cat at a farm-house where she was staying 
during the summer months, which became attached to 
her and was constantly bringing her young rabbits. They 
were never injured but held firmly by the skin of the 
neck. The lady would take the rabbit gently into her 
hands and deposit it on her lap, and cover it over with 
a handkerchief or a cloth, and pussy, seeing it safe in 
her power, would then go away. The lady would then 
walk away to a distance from the house to liberate the 
little trembler, devoutly wishing that this too affectionate 



182 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



cat would get over the delusion that such gifts were 
acceptable to her. One day pussy came trotting into the 
drawing-room with a stoat in his mouth, and depositing 
it on the carpet by the side of her chair immediately 
turned round and hastily left the room. The stoat was 
dead, not being a creature that could easily be carried 
about alive, and pussy, having other matters to attend 




«r-s 



-rov/iNT* 



to, did not think it necessary to wait to see her present 
taken up and carefully deposited in her mistress's lap. 

Cases of this kind are exceedingly common, and the 
simple explanation is, that the cat is not quite so unsocial 
a creature as some naturalists would have us believe. We 
may say that in this respect he compares badly with ele- 
phants, whales, pigs, seals, cattle, apes, wolves, dogs, 
and other large-brained social mammals; but he does 
not live wholly for himself. He is able to take thought 
for other cats and for his human companion — master 
hardly seems the right word in the case of such an animal 



CONCERNING CATS 183 

— who is doubtless to him only a very big cat that walks 
erect on his hind legs. I must, however, relate one more 
instance of a cat who hunted for others, told to me by 
a very aged friend of mine, a native of Fonthill Bishop, 
and some of whose early memories will be given later in 
the chapter entitled "Old Wiltshire Days." 

When she was a young motherless girl and they were 
very poor indeed, her father being incapacitated, they 
had a cat that was a great help to them; a large black 
and white animal who spent a greater part of his time 
hunting in Fonthill Abbey woods, and who was always 
bringing in something for the pot. The cat was attached 
to her, and whatever was brought in was for her exclu- 
sively, and I imagine it is so in all cases in which a cat 
has the custom of bringing anything it catches into the 
house. The cat mind cannot understand a division of 
food. It does not and cannot share a mouse or bird with 
another cat, and when it gives it gives the whole animal, 
and to one person alone. When the cat brought a rabbit 
home he would not come into the kitchen with it if he 
saw her little brother or any other person there, lest 
they should take it into their hands; he would steal off 
and conceal it among the weeds at the back of the cot- 
tage, then come back to make little mewing sounds under- 
stood by its young mistress, and she would thereupon 
follow it out to where the rabbit was hidden and take 
it up, and the cat would then be satisfied. 

The cat brought her rabbits and di-dappers, as she 
called the moorhen, caught in the sedges by the lake in 
the park. This was the first occasion of my meeting 
with this name for a bird, but it comes no doubt from 
dive-dapper, an old English vernacular name (found in 



184 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Shakespeare) of the dabchick, or little grebe. Moorhens 
were not the only birds it captured: on two or three 
occasions it brought in a partridge and on one occasion 
a fish. Whether it was a trout or not she could not say ; 
she only knew that she cooked and ate it and that it was 
very good. 

One day, looking out, she spied her cat coming home 
with something very big, something it had caught larger 
than itself; and it was holding its head very high, drag- 
ging its burden along with great labour. It was a hare, 
and she ran out to receive it, and when she got to the 
cat and stooped down to take it from him he released it 
too soon, for it was uninjured, and away it bounded and 
vanished into the woods, leaving them both very much 
astonished and disgusted. 

For a long time her cat managed to escape the poach- 
ing animal's usual fate in the woods, which were strictly 
preserved then, in the famous Squire Beckford's day, 
as they are now ; but a day arrived when it came hobbling 
in with a broken leg. It had been caught in a steel trap, 
and some person who was not a keeper had found and 
released it. She washed the blood off, and taking it on 
her lap put the bones together and bound up the broken 
limb as well as she was able, and the bones joined, and 
before very long the cat was well again. And no sooner 
was it well than it resumed its hunting in the woods and 
bringing in rabbits and di-dappers. 

But alas, it had but nine lives, and having generously 
spent them all in the service of its young mistress it 
came to its end; at all events it finally disappeared, 
and it was conjectured that a keeper had succeeded in 
killing it. 



CONCERNING CATS 185 

One of my old shepherd's stories about strange or 
eccentric persons he had known during his long life was 
of a gentleman farmer, an old bachelor, in the parish of 
Winterbourne Bishop, who had (for a man) an excessive 
fondness for cats and who always kept eleven of these 
animals as pets. For some mysterious reason that num- 
ber was religiously adhered to. The farmer was fond 
of riding on the downs, and was invariably attended by 
a groom in livery — a crusty old fellow; and one of this 
man's duties was to attend to his master's eleven cats. 
They had to be fed at their proper time, in their own 
dining-room, eating their meals from a row of eleven 
plates on a long, low table made expressly for them. 
They were taught to go each one to his own place and 
plate, and not to get on to the table, but to eat "like Chris- 
tians," without quarrelling or interfering with their 
neighbours on either side. And, as a rule, they all be- 
haved properly, except one big tom-cat, who developed 
so greedy, spiteful, and tyrannical a disposition that there 
was never a meal but he upset the harmony and brought 
it to a disorderly end, with spittings, snarlings, and 
scratchings. Day after day the old groom went to his 
master with a long, dolorous plaint of this cat's intoler- 
able behaviour, but the farmer would not consent to its 
removal, or to any strong measures being taken; kind- 
ness combined with patience and firmness, he maintained, 
would at last win even this troublesome animal to a better 
mind. But in the end he, too, grew tired of this incor- 
rigible cat, who was now making the others spiteful and 
quarrelsome by his example; and one day, hearing a 
worse account than usual, he got into a passion, and 
taking a loaded gun handed it to the groom with orders 



186- A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

to shoot the cat on the spot on the very next occasion 
of it misbehaving, so that not only would they be rid of 
it but its death in that way would serve as a warning 
to the others. At the very next meal the bad cat got up 
the usual row, and by and by they were all fighting and 
tearing each other on the table, and the groom, seizing 
the gun, sent a charge of shot into the thickest of the 
fight, shooting three of the cats dead. But the author 
of all the mischief escaped without so much as a pellet ! 
The farmer was in a great rage at this disastrous blun- 
dering, and gave notice to his groom on the spot ; but the 
man was an old and valued servant, and by and by he 
forgave him, and the quarrelsome animal having been 
got rid of, and four fresh cats obtained to fill up the gaps, 
peace was restored. 

I must now return to the subject of the cat tragedy 
related in the early part of this chapter — Bawcombe's 
cat at Doveton, who had the habit of sitting on a rail 
of the line which runs through the vale, and was even- 
tually killed by a train. So strange a story — for how 
strange it seems that an animal of so cautious and well- 
balanced a mind, so capable above all others of saving 
itself in difficult and dangerous emergencies, should have 
met its end in such a way! — might very well have sug- 
gested something behind the mere fact, some mysterious 
weakness in the animal similar to that which Herodotus 
relates of the Egyptian cat in its propensity of rushing 
into the fire when a house was burning and thus destroying 
itself. Yet no such idea came into my mind: it was just 
a "strange fact," an accident in the life of an individual, 
and after telling it I passed on, thinking no more about 



CONCERNING CATS 187 

the subject, only to find long months afterwards, by the 
merest chance, that I had been very near to a discovery 
of the greatest significance and interest in the life-history 
of the animal. 

It came about in the following way. I was on the 
platform of a station on the South-Western line from 
Salisbury to Yeovil, waiting for my train, when a pretty 
little kitten came out of the stationmaster's house at the 
end of the platform, and I picked it up. Then a child, 
a wee girlie of about five, came out to claim her pet, and 
we got into a talk about the kitten. She was pleased at 
its being admired, and saying she would show me the 
other one, ran in and came out with a black kitten in her 
arms. I duly admired this one too. "But," I said, "they 
won't let you keep both, because then there would be too 
many cats." 

"No — only two," she returned. 

"Three, with their mother." 

"No, they haven't got a mother — she was killed on 
the line." 

I remembered the shepherd's cat, and by and by finding 
the stationmaster I questioned him about the cat that 
had been killed. 

"Oh, yes," he said, "cats are always "getting killed 
on the line — we can never keep one long. I don't know 
if they try to cross the line or how it is. One of the 
porters saw the last one get killed and will tell you just 
how it happened." 

I found the porter, and his account was that he saw 
the cat on the line, standing with its forepaws on a rail 
when an express train was coming. He called to the 
cat two or three times, then yelled at it to frighten it off, 



188 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

but it never moved; it stared as if dazed at the coming 
train, and was struck on the head and knocked dead. 

This story set me making inquiries at other village 
stations, and at other villages where there are no stations, 
but close to which the line runs in the Wylye vale and 
where there is a pointsman. I was told that cats are 
very often found killed on the line, in some instances 
crushed as if they had been lying or sitting on a rail when 
the train went over them. They get dazed, the men said, 
and could not save themselves. 

I was also told that rabbits were sometimes killed and, 
more frequently, hares. "I've had several hares from 
the line," one man told me. He said that he had seen 
a hare running before a train, and thought that in most 
cases the hare kept straight on until it was run down 
and killed. But not in every case, as he had actually 
seen one hare killed, and in this case the hare sat up 
and remained staring at the coming train until it was 
struck. 

It cannot be doubted, I think, that the cat is subject 
to this strange weakness. It is not a case of "losing its 
head" like a cyclist amidst the traffic in a thoroughfare, 
or of miscalculating the speed of a coming train and 
attempting too late to cross the line. The sight of the 
coming train paralyses its will, or hypnotizes it, and it 
cannot save itself. 

Now the dog, a less well-balanced animal than the 
cat and inferior in many ways, has no such failing and 
is killed by a train purely through blundering. While 
engaged in making these inquiries, a Wiltshire woman 
told me of an adventure she had with her dog, a fox- 
terrier. She had just got over the line at a level crossing 



CONCERNING CATS 189 

when the gates swung to, and looking for her dog she 
saw him absorbed in a smell he had discovered on the 
other side of the line. An express train was just coming, 
and screaming to her dog she saw him make a dash to 
get across just as the engine came abreast of her. The 
dog had vanished from sight, but when the whole train 
had passed up he jumped from between the rails where 
he had been crouching and bounded across to her, quite 
unhurt. He had dived under the train behind the engine, 
and waited there till it had gone by! 

It is, however, a fact that not all the cats killed on 
the line have been hypnotized or dazed at the sight of 
the coming train ; undoubtedly some do meet their death 
through attempting to cross the line before a coming 
train. At all events, I heard of one such case from a 
person who had witnessed it. It was at a spot where a 
small group of workmen's cottages stands close to the 
line at a village; here I was told that "several cats" got 
killed on the line every year, and as the man who gave 
me the information had seen a cat running across the 
line before a train and getting killed it was assumed by 
the cottagers that it was so in all cases. 




CHAPTER XVI 



The Ellerbys of Doveton 

The Bawcombes at Doveton Farm — Caleb finds favour 
with his master — Mrs. Ellerby and the shepherd's 
wife — The passion of a childless wife — The curse — 
A story of the "mob" — The attack on the farm — A 
man transported for life — The hundred and ninth 
Psalm — The end of the Ellerbys 

Caleb and his wife invariably spoke of their time at 
Doveton Farm in a way which gave one the idea that 
they regarded it as the most important period of their 
lives. It had deeply impressed them, and doubtless it 
was a great change for them to leave their native village 
for the first time in their lives and go long miles from 
home among strangers to serve a new master. Above 
everything they felt leaving the old father who was angry 
with them, and had gone to the length of disowning them 

190 



THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON 191 

for taking such a step. But there was something besides 
all this which had served to give Doveton an enduring 
place in their memories, and after many talks with the 
old couple about their Warminster days I formed the idea 
that it was more to them than any other place where they 
had lived, because of a personal feeling they cherished 
for their master and mistress there. 

Hitherto Caleb had been in the service of men who 
were but a little way removed in thought and feeling 
from those they employed. They were mostly small men, 
born and bred in the parish, some wholly self-made, with 
no interest or knowledge of anything outside their own 
affairs, and almost as far removed as the labourers them- 
selves from the ranks above. The Ellerbys were of 
another stamp, or a different class. If not a gentleman, 
Mr. Ellerby was very like one and was accustomed to 
associate with gentlemen. He was a farmer, descended 
from a long line of farmers; but he owned his own 
land, and was an educated and travelled man, considered 
wealthy for a farmer; at all events he was able to keep 
his carriage and riding and hunting horses in his stables, 
and he was regarded as the best breeder of sheep in the 
district. He lived in a good house, which with its pic- 
tures and books and beautiful decorations and furni- 
ture appeared to their simple minds extremely luxurious. 
This atmosphere was somewhat disconcerting to them 
at first, for although he knew his own value, priding 
himself on being a "good shepherd," Caleb had up till 
now served with farmers who were in a sense on an 
equality with him, and they understood him and he them. 
But in a short time the feeling of strangeness vanished: 
personally, as a fellow-man, his master soon grew to be 



192 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

more to him than any farmer he had yet been with. And 
he saw a good deal of his master. Mr. Ellerby cultivated 
his acquaintance, and, as we have seen, got into the 
habit of seeking him out and talking to him even when 
he was at a distance out on the down with his flock. 
And Caleb could not but see that in this respect he was 
preferred above the other men employed on the farm — 
that he had "found favour" in his master's eyes. 

When he had told me that story about Watch and 
the corn-crake, it stuck in my mind, and on the first 
opportunity I went back to that subject to ask what it 
really was that made his master act in such an extraor- 
dinary manner — to go out on a pouring wet day in a 
summer suit and straw hat, and walk a mile or two just 
to stand there in the rain talking to him about nothing 
in particular. What secret trouble had he — was it that 
his affairs were in a bad way, or was he quarrelling with 
his wife? No, nothing of the kind, it was a long story 
— this secret trouble of the Ellerbys, and with his uncon- 
querable reticence in regard to other people's private 
affairs he would have passed it off with a few general 
remarks. 

But there was his old wife listening to us, and, woman- 
like, eager to discuss such a subject, she would not let it 
pass. She would tell it and would not be silenced by 
him: they were all dead and gone — why should I not 
be told if I wanted to hear it? And so with a word 
put in here and there by him when she talked, and with 
a good many words interposed by her when he took up 
the tale, they unfolded the story, which was very long 
as they told it and must be given briefly here. 

It happened that when the Bawcombes settled at Dove- 



THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON 193 

ton, just as Mr. Ellerby had taken to the shepherd, making 
a friend of him, so Mrs. Ellerby took to the shepherd's 
wife, and fell into the habit of paying frequent visits to 
her in her cottage. She was a very handsome woman, 
of a somewhat stately presence, dignified in manner, and 
she wore her abundant hair in curls hanging on each side 
to her shoulders — a fashion common at that time. From 
the first she appeared to take a particular interest in the 
Bawcombes, and they could not but notice that she was 
more gracious and friendly towards them than to the 
others of their station on the farm. The Bawcombes 
had three children then, aged 6, 4, and 2 years respec- 
tively, all remarkably healthy, with rosy cheeks and black 
eyes, and they were merry-tempered little things. Mrs. 
Ellerby appeared much taken with the children; praised 
their mother for always keeping them so clean and nicely 
dressed, and wondered how she could manage it on their 
small earnings. The carter and his wife lived in a cottage 
close by, and they, too, had three little children, and next 
to the carter's was the bailiff's cottage, and he, too, was 
married and had children; but Mrs. Ellerby never went 
into their cottages, and the shepherd and his wife con- 
cluded that it was because in both cases the children 
were rather puny, sickly-looking little things and were 
never very clean. The carter's wife, too, was a slatternly 
woman. One day when Mrs. Ellerby came in to see 
Mrs. Bawcombe the carter's wife was just going out 
of the door, and Mrs. Ellerby appeared displeased, and 
before leaving she said, "I hope, Mrs. Bawcombe, you 
are not going to mix too freely with your neighbours 
or let your children go too much with them and fall into 
their ways." They also observed that when she passed 



194 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

their neighbours' children in the lane she spoke no word 
and appeared not to see them. Yet she was kind to them 
too, and whenever she brought a big parcel of cakes, 
fruit, and sweets for the children, which she often did, 
she would tell the shepherd's wife to divide it into three 
lots, one for her own children and the others for those 
of her two neighbours. It was clear to see that Mrs. 
Ellerby had grown fond of her children, especially of 
the eldest, the little rosy-cheeked six-year-old boy. Sitting 
in the cottage she would call him to her side and would 
hold his hand while conversing with his mother; she 
would also bare the child's arm just for the pleasure of 
rubbing it with her hand and clasping it round with her 
fingers, and sometimes when caressing the child in this 
way she would turn her face aside to hide the tears that 
dropped from her eyes. 

She had no child of her own — the one happiness which 
she and her husband desired above all things. Six times 
in their ten married years they had hoped and rejoiced, 
although with fear and trembling, that their prayer would 
be answered, but in vain — every child born to them came 
lifeless into the world. "And so 'twould always be, for 
sure," said the villagers, "because of the curse." 

For it was a cause of wonder to the shepherd and 
his wife that this couple, so strong and healthy, so noble- 
looking, so anxious to have children, should have been 
so unfortunate, and still the villagers repeated that it 
was the curse that was on them. 

This made the shepherd angry. "What be you saying 
about a curse that is on them ? — a good man and a good 
woman !" he would exclaim, and taking up his crook go 
out and leave them to their gossip. He would not ask 



THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON 195 

them what they meant; he refused to listen when they 
tried to tell him ; but in the end he could not help know- 
ing, since the idea had become a fixed one in the minds 
of all the villagers, and he could not keep it out. "Look 
at them," the gossipers would say, "as fine a couple as 
you ever saw, and no child ; and look at his two brothers, 
fine, big, strong, well-set-up men, both married to fine 
healthy women, and never a child living to any of them. 
And the sisters unmarried! 'Tis the curse and nothing 
else." 

The curse had been uttered against Mr. Ellerby's 
father, who was in his prime in the year 1831 at the 
time of the "mob," when the introduction of labour- 
saving machinery in agriculture sent the poor farm- 
labourers mad all over England. Wheat was at a high 
price at that time, and the farmers were exceedingly 
prosperous, but they paid no more than seven shillings 
a week to their miserable labourers. And if they were 
half-starved when there was work for all, when the corn 
was reaped with sickles, what would their condition be 
when reaping machines and other new implements of 
husbandry came into use? They would not suffer it; 
they would gather in bands everywhere and destroy the 
machinery, and being united they would be irresistible ; 
and so it came about that there were risings or "mobs" 
all over the land. 

Mr. Ellerby, the most prosperous and enterprising 
farmer in the parish, had been the first to introduce the 
new methods. He did not believe that the people would 
rise against him, for he well knew that he was regarded 
as a just and kind man and was even loved by his own 
labourers, but even if it had not been so he would not 



196 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

have hesitated to carry out his resolution, as he was a 
high-spirited man. But one day the villagers got together 
and came unexpectedly to his barns, where they set to 
work to destroy his new threshing machine. When he 
was told he rushed out and went in hot haste to the scene, 
and as he drew near some person in the crowd threw 
a heavy hammer at him, which struck him on the head 
and brought him senseless to the ground. 

He was not seriously injured, but when he recovered 
the work of destruction had been done and the men 
had gone back to their homes, and no one could say who 
had led them and who had thrown the hammer. But 
by and by the police discovered that the hammer was 
the property of a shoemaker in the village, and he was 
arrested and charged with injuring with intent to murder. 
Tried with many others from other villages in the district 
at the Salisbury Assizes, he was found guilty and sen- 
tenced to transportation for life. Yet the Doveton shoe- 
maker was known to every one as a quiet, inoffensive 
young man, and to the last he protested his innocence, 
for although he had gone with the others to the farm 
he had not taken the hammer and was guiltless of having 
thrown it. 

Two years after he had been sent away Mr. Ellerby 
received a letter with an Australian postmark on it, but 
opening it found nothing but a long denunciatory passage 
from the Bible enclosed, with no name or address. Mr. 
Ellerby was much disturbed in his mind, and instead of 
burning the paper and holding his peace, he kept it and 
spoke about it to this person and that, and every one 
went to his Bible to find out what message the poor 
shoemaker had sent, for it had been discovered that it 



THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON 197 

was the one hundred and ninth Psalm, or a great portion 
of it, and this is what they read: — 

"Hold not Thy peace, O God of my praise; for the 
mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are 
opened against me: they have spoken against me with 
a lying tongue. They compassed me about also with 
words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause. 
And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred 
for my love. 

"Set Thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan 
stand at his right hand. 

"When he shall be judged, let him be condemned ; and 
let his prayer become sin. 

"Let his days be few; and another take his office. 

"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 

"Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; 
let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. 

"Let there be none to extend mercy unto him ; neither 
let there be any to favour his fatherless children. 

"Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation 
following let their name be blotted out. 

"Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with 
the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted 
out. 

"Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may 
cut off the memory of them from the earth. 

"Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but 
persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even 
slay the broken in heart. 

"As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he 
delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. 

"As he clothed himself with cursing like as with a 



198 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and 
like oil into his bones. 

"Let it be unto him as a garment which covereth him, 
and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. 

"But do Thou for me, O God the Lord, for Thy 
name's sake. For I am poor and needy, and my heart 
is wounded within me. 

"I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am 
tossed up and down as the locust. 

"My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh 
faileth of fatness. 

"Help me, O Lord my God ; that they may know that 
this is Thy hand; that Thou, Lord, hast done it." 

From that time the hundred and ninth Psalm became 
familiar to the villagers, and there were probably not 
many who did not get it by heart. There was no doubt 
in their minds of the poor shoemaker's innocence. Every 
one knew that he was incapable of hurting a fly. The 
crowd had gone into his shop and swept him away with 
them — all were in it; and some person seeing the ham- 
mer had taken it to help in smashing the machinery. 
And Mr. Ellerby had known in his heart that he was 
innocent, and if he had spoken a word for him in court 
he would have got the benefit of the doubt and been 
discharged. But no, he wanted to have his revenge on 
some one, and he held his peace and allowed this poor 
fellow to be made the victim. Then, when he died, and 
his eldest son succeeded him at Doveton Farm, and he 
and the other sons got married, and there were no chil- 
dren, or none born alive, they went back to the Psalm 
again and read and re-read and quoted the words: "Let 
his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following 



THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON 199 

let their name be blotted out." Undoubtedly the curse 
was on them! 

Alas! it was; the curse was their belief in the curse, 
and the dreadful effect of the knowledge of it on a 
woman's mind — all the result of Mr. Ellerby the father's 
fatal mistake in not having thrown the scrap of paper 
that came to him from the other side of the world into 
the fire. All the unhappiness of the "generation follow- 
ing" came about in this way, and the family came to an 
end; for when the last of the Ellerbys died at a great 
age there was not one person of the name left in that 
part of Wiltshire. 



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SALISBURY 



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rONTHILL BISHOP 



CHAPTER XVII 
Old Wiltshire Days 

Old memories — Hindon as a borough and as a village — 
The Lamb Inn and its birds — The "mob" at Hindon 
— The blind smuggler — Rawlings of Lower Pert- 
wood Farm — Reed, the thresher and deer-stealer — 
He leaves a fortune — Devotion to work — Old Father 
Time — Groveley Wood and the people's rights — 
Grace Reed and the Earl of Pembroke — An illusion 
of the very aged — Sedan-chairs in Bath — Stick-gath- 
ering by the poor — Game-preserving 

The incident of the unhappy young man who was trans- 
ported to Australia or Tasmania, which came out in the 
shepherd's history of the Ellerby family, put it in my 
mind to look up some of the very aged people of the 
downland villages, whose memories could go back to 

200 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 201 

the events of eighty years ago. I found a few, "still 
lingering here," who were able to recall that miserable 
and memorable year of 1830 and had witnessed the doings 
of the "mobs." One was a woman, my old friend of 
Fonthill Bishop, now aged 94, who was in her teens 
when the poor labourers, "a thousand strong," some say, 
armed with cudgels, hammers, and axes, visited her vil- 
lage and broke up the threshing machines they found 
there. 

Another person who remembered that time was an 
old but remarkably well-preserved man of 89 at Hindon, 
a village a couple of miles distant from Fonthill Bishop. 
Hindon is a delightful little village, so rustic and pretty 
amidst its green, swelling downs, with great woods crown- 
ing the heights beyond, that one can hardly credit the 
fact that it was formerly an important market and session 
town and a Parliamentary borough returning two mem- 
bers ; also that it boasted among other greatnesses thirteen 
public-houses. Now it has two, and not flourishing in 
these tea- and mineral-water drinking days. Naturally 
it was an exceedingly corrupt little borough, where free 
beer for all was the order of the day for a period of four 
to six weeks before an election, and where every house- 
holder with a vote looked to receive twenty guineas from 
the candidate of his choice. It is still remembered that 
when a householder in those days was very hard up, 
owing, perhaps, to his too frequent visits to the thirteen 
public-houses, he would go to some substantial tradesman 
in the place and pledge his twenty guineas, due at the 
next election! In due time, after the Reform Bill, it 
was deprived of its glory, and later when the South- 
Western Railway built their line from Salisbury to Yeovil 



202 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

and left Hindon some miles away, making their station 
at Tisbury, it fell into decay, dwindling to the small 
village it now is ; and its last state, sober and purified, is 
very much better than the old. For although sober, it 
is contented and even merry, and exhibits such a sweet 
friendliness towards the stranger within its gates as to 
make him remember it with pleasure and gratitude. 

What a quiet little place Hindon has become, after 
its old noisy period, the following little bird story will 
show. For several weeks during the spring and summer 
of 1909 my home was at the Lamb Inn, a famous posting- 
house of the great old days, and we had three pairs of 
birds — throstle, pied wagtail, and flycatcher — breeding 
in the ivy covering the wall facing the village street, just 
over my window. I watched them when building, incu- 
bating, feeding their young, and bringing their young 
off. The villagers, too, were interested in the sight, and 
sometimes a dozen or more men and boys would gather 
and stand for half an hour watching the birds flying in 
and out of their nests when feeding their young. The 
last to come off were the flycatchers, on 18 June. It 
was on the morning of the day I left, and one of the 
little things flitted into the room where I was having my 
breakfast. I succeeded in capturing it before the cats 
found out, and put it back on the ivy. There were three 
young birds; I had watched them from the time they 
hatched, and when I returned a fortnight later, there 
were the three, still being fed by their parents in the 
trees and on the roof, their favourite perching-place being 
on the swinging sign of the "Lamb." Whenever an old 
bird darted at and captured a fly the three young would 
flutter round it like three butterflies to get the fly. This 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 203 

continued until 18 July, after which date I could not 
detect their feeding the young, although the hunger-call 
was occasionally heard. 

If the flycatcher takes a month to teach its young to 
catch their own flies, it is not strange that it breeds but 
once in the year. It is a delicate art the bird practises 
and takes long to learn, but how different with the martin, 
which dismisses its young in a few days and begins 
breeding again, even to the third time! 

These three broods over my window were not the only 
ones in the place; there were at least twenty other pairs 
in the garden and outhouses of the inn — sparrows, 
thrushes, blackbirds, dunnocks, wrens, starlings, and 
swallows. Yet the inn was in the very centre of the 
village, and being an inn was the most frequented and 
noisiest spot. 

To return to my old friend of 89. He was but a 
small boy, attending the Hindon school, when the rioters 
appeared on the scene, and he watched their entry from 
the schoolhouse window. It was market-day, and the 
market was stopped by the invaders, and the agricultural 
machines brought for sale and exhibition were broken 
up. The picture that remains in his mind is of a great 
excited crowd in which men and cattle and sheep were 
mixed together in the wide street, which was the market- 
place, and of shouting and noise of smashing machinery, 
and finally of the mob pouring forth over the down on 
its way to the next village, he and other little boys fol- 
lowing their march. 

The smuggling trade flourished greatly at that period, 
and there were receivers and distributors of smuggled 
wine, spirits, and other commodities in every town and 



204 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



in very many villages throughout the county in spite of 
its distance from the sea-coast. One of his memories is 
of a blind man of the village, or town as it was then, 
who was used as an assistant in this business. He had 
lost his sight in childhood, one eye having been destroyed 
by a ferret which got into his cradle; then, when he was 
about six years old, he was running across the room one 
day with a fork in his hand when he stumbled, and falling 
on the floor had the other eye pierced by the prongs. But 







• H1NDON 



in spite of his blindness he became a good worker, and 
could make a fence, reap, trim hedges, feed the animals, 
and drive a horse as well as any man. His father had 
a small farm and was a carrier as well, a quiet, sober, 
industrious man who was never suspected by his neigh- 
bours of being a smuggler, for he never left his house 
and work, but from time to time he had little consign- 
ments of rum and brandy in casks received on a dark 
night and carefully stowed away in his manure heap and 
in a pit under the floor of his pigsty. Then the blind son 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 205 

would drive his old mother in the carrier's cart to Bath 
and call at a dozen or twenty private houses, leaving 
parcels which had been already ordered and paid for — 
a gallon of brandy in one, two or four gallons of rum 
at another, and so on, until all was got rid of, and on 
the following day they would return with goods to Hin- 
don. This quiet little business went on satisfactorily for 
some years, during which the officers of the excise had 
stared a thousand times with their eagle's eyes at the 
quaint old woman in her poke bonnet and shawl, driven 
by a blind man with a vacant face, and had suspected 
nothing, when a little mistake was made and a jar of 
brandy delivered at a wrong address. The recipient was 
an honest gentleman, and in his anxiety to find the right- 
ful owner of the brandy made extensive inquiries in his 
neighbourhood, and eventually the excisemen got wind 
of the affair, and on the very next visit of the old woman 
and her son to Bath they were captured. After an 
examination before a magistrate the son was discharged 
on account of his blindness, but the cart and horses, as 
well as the smuggled spirits, were confiscated, and the 
poor blind man had to make his way on foot to Hindon. 
Another of his recollections is of a family named 
Rawlings, tenants of Lower Pertwood Farm, near Hin- 
don, a lonely, desolate-looking house hidden away in a 
deep hollow among the high downs. The Farmer Raw- 
lings of seventy to eighty years ago was a man of 
singular ideas, and that he was permitted to put them 
in practice shows that severe as was the law in those days, 
and dreadful the punishments inflicted on offenders, there 
was a kind of liberty which does not exist now — the 
liberty a man had of doing just what he thought proper 



206 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

in his own house. This Rawlings had a numerous family, 
and some died at home and others lived to grow up and 
go out into the world under strange names — Faith, Hope, 
and Charity were three of his daughters, and Justice, 
Morality, and Fortitude three of his sons. Now, for 
some reason Rawlings objected to the burial of his dead 
in the churchyard of the nearest village — Monkton 
Deverill, and the story is that he quarrelled with the 
rector over the question of the church bell being tolled 
for the funeral. He would have no bell tolled, he swore, 
and the rector would bury no one without the bell. There- 
upon Rawlings had the coffined corpse deposited on a 
table in an outhouse and the door made fast. Later 
there was another death, then a third, and all three were 
kept in the same place for several years, and although 
it was known to the whole countryside no action was 
taken by the local authorities. 

My old informant says that he was often at the farm 
when he was a young man, and he used to steal round 
to the "Dead House," as it was called, to peep through 
a crack in the door and see the three coffins resting on 
the table in the dim interior. 

Eventually the dead disappeared a little while before 
the Rawlings gave up the farm, and it was supposed 
that the old farmer had buried them in the night-time 
in one of the neighbouring chalk-pits, but the spot has 
never been discovered. 

One of the stories of the old Wiltshire days I picked 
up was from an old woman, aged 87, in the Wilton 
workhouse. She has a vivid recollection of a labourer 
named Reed, in Odstock, a village on the Ebble near Salis- 
bury, a stern, silent man, who was a marvel of strength 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 207 

and endurance. The work in which he most delighted 
was precisely that which most labourers hated, before 
threshing machines came in despite the action of the 
"mobs" — threshing out corn with the flail. From earliest 
dawn till after dark he would sit or stand in a dim, dusty 
barn, monotonously pounding away, without an interval 
to rest, and without dinner and with no food but a piece 
of bread and a pinch of salt. Without the salt he would 
not eat the bread. An hour after all others had ceased 
from work he would put on his coat and trudge home to 
his wife and family. 

The woman in the workhouse remembers that once, 
when Reed was a very old man past work, he came to 
their cottage for something, and while he stood waiting 
at the entrance, a little boy ran in and asked his mother 
for a piece of bread and butter with sugar on it. Old 
Reed glared at him, and shaking his big stick, exclaimed, 
'Td give you sugar with this if you were my boy !" and 
so terrible did he look in his anger at the luxury of the 
times, that the little boy burst out crying and ran away ! 

What chiefly interested me about this old man was 
that he was a deer-stealer of the days when that offence 
was common in the country. It was not so great a crime 
as sheep-stealing, for which men were hanged ; taking 
a deer was punished with nothing worse than hard labour 
as a rule. But Reed was never caught ; he would labour 
his full time and steal away after dark over the downs, 
to return in the small hours with a deer on his back. It 
was not for his own consumption; he wanted the money 
for which he sold it in Salisbury; and it is probable that 
he was in league with other poachers, as it is hard to 
believe that he could capture the animals single-handed. 



208 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



After his death it was found that old Reed had left 
a hundred pounds to each of his two surviving daughters, 
and it was a wonder to everybody how he had managed 
not only to bring up a family and keep himself out of 
the workhouse to the end of his long life but to leave so 
large a sum of money. One can only suppose that he 




was a rigid economist and never had a week's illness, 
and that by abstaining from beer and tobacco he was 
able to save a couple of shillings each week out of his 
wages of seven or eight shillings; this, in forty years, 
would make the two hundred pounds with something 
over. 

It is not a very rare thing to find a farm-labourer like 
old Reed of Odstock, with not only a strong preference 
for a particular kind of work, but a love of it as compel- 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 209 

ling as that of an artist for his art. Some friends of mine 
whom I went to visit over the border in Dorset told me 
of an enthusiast of this description who had recently 
died in the village. "What a pity you did not come 
sooner," they said. Alas ! it is nearly always so ; on first 
coming to stay at a village one is told that it has but 
just lost its oldest and most interesting inhabitant — a 
relic of the olden time. 

This man had taken to the scythe as Reed had to the 
flail, and was never happy unless he had a field to mow. 
He was a very tall old man, so lean that he looked like 
a skeleton, the bones covered with a skin as brown as 
old leather, and he wore his thin grey hair and snow- 
white beard very long. He rode on a white donkey, and 
was usually seen mounted galloping down the village 
street, hatless, his old brown, bare feet and legs drawn 
up to keep them from the ground, his scythe over his 
shoulder. "Here comes Old Father Time," they would 
cry, as they called him, and run to the door to gaze with 
ever fresh delight at the wonderful old man as he rushed 
by, kicking and shouting at his donkey to make him 
go faster. He was always in a hurry, hunting for work 
with furious zeal, and when he got a field to mow so 
eager was he that he would not sleep at home, even if 
it was close by, but would lie down on the grass at the 
side of the field and start working at dawn, between 
two and three o'clock, quite three hours before the world 
woke up to its daily toil. 

The name of Reed, the zealous thresher with the flail, 
serves to remind me of yet another Reed, a woman who 
died a few years ago aged 94, and whose name should 
be cherished in one of the downland villages. She was 



210 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

a native of Barford St. Martin on the Nadder, one of 
two villages, the other being Wishford, on the Wylye 
river, the inhabitants of which have the right to go into 
Groveley Wood, an immense forest on the Wilton estate, 
to obtain wood for burning, each person being entitled 
to take home as much wood as he or she can carry. The 
people of Wishford take green wood, but those of Bar- 
ford only dead, they having bartered their right at a 
remote period to cut growing trees for a yearly sum of 
five pounds, which the lord of the manor still pays to 
the village, and, in addition, the right to take dead wood. 
It will be readily understood that this right possessed 
by the people of two villages, both situated within a 
mile of the forest, has been a perpetual source of annoy- 
ance to the noble owners in modern times, since the strict 
preservation of game, especially of pheasants, has grown 
to be almost a religion to the landowners. Now it came 
to pass that about half a century or longer ago, the 
Pembroke of that time made the happy discovery, as he 
imagined, that there was nothing to show that the Bar- 
ford people had any right to the dead wood. They had 
been graciously allowed to take it, as was the case all 
over the country at that time, and that was all. At once 
he issued an edict prohibiting the taking of dead wood 
from the forest by the villagers, and great as the loss 
was to them they acquiesced ; not a man of Barford St. 
Martin dared to disobey the prohibition or raise his voice 
against it. Grace Reed then determined to oppose the 
mighty earl, and accompanied by four other women of 
the village boldly went to the wood and gathered their 
sticks and brought them home. They were summoned 
before the magistrates and fined, and on their refusal 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 211 

to pay were sent to prison; but the very next day they 
were liberated and told that a mistake had been made, 
that the matter had been inquired into, and it had been 
found that the people of Barford did really have the 
right they had exercised so long to take dead wood from 
the forest. 

As a result of the action of these women the right 
has not been challenged since, and on my last visit to 
Barford, a few days before writing this chapter, I saw 
three women coming down from the forest with as much 
dead wood as they could carry on their heads and backs. 
But how near they came to losing their right! It was 
a bold, an unheard-of thing which they did, and if there 
had not been a poor cottage woman with the spirit to 
do it at the proper moment the right could never have 
been revived. 

Grace Reed's children's children are living at Barford 
now; they say that to the very end of her long life she 
preserved a very clear memory of the people and events 
of the village in the old days early in the last century. 
They say, too, that in recalling the far past, the old people 
and scenes would present themselves so vividly to her 
mind that she would speak of them as of recent things, 
and would say to some one fifty years younger than 
herself, "Can't you remember it? Surely you haven't 
forgotten it when 'twas the talk of the village !" 

It is a common illusion of the very aged, and I had 
an amusing instance of it in my old Hindon friend when 
he gave me his first impressions of Bath as he saw it 
about the year 1835. What astonished him most were 
the sedan-chairs, for he had never even heard of such a 
conveyance, but here in this city of wonders you met 



212 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

them in every street. Then he added, "But you've been 
to Bath and of course you've seen them, and know all 
about it." 

About firewood-gathering by the poor in woods and 
forests, my old friend of Fonthill Bishop says that the 
people of the villages adjacent to the Fonthill and Great 
Ridge Woods were allowed to take as much dead wood 
as they wanted from those places. She was accustomed 
to go to the Great Ridge Wood which was even wilder 
and more like a natural forest in those days than it is 
now. It was fully two miles from her village, a longish 
distance to carry a heavy load, and it was her custom 
after getting the wood out to bind it firmly in a large 
barrel-shaped bundle or faggot, as in that way she could 
roll it down the smooth steep slopes of the down and 
so get her burden home without so much groaning and 
sweating. The great wood was then full of hazel-trees, 
and produced such an abundance of nuts that from 
mid-July to September people flocked to it for the nutting 
from all the country round, coming even from Bath and 
Bristol to load their carts with nuts in sacks for the 
market. Later, when the wood began to be more strictly 
preserved for sporting purposes, the rabbits were allowed 
to increase excessively, and during the hard winters they 
attacked the hazel-trees, gnawing off the bark, until this 
most useful and profitable wood the forest produced — 
the scrubby oaks having little value — was wellnigh extir- 
pated. By and by pheasants as well as rabbits were 
strictly preserved, and the firewood-gatherers were ex- 
cluded altogether. At present you find dead wood lying 
about all over the place, abundantly as in any primitive 
forest, where trees die of old age or disease, or are blown 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 213 

down or broken off by the winds and are left to rot on 
the ground, overgrown with ivy and brambles. But of 
all this dead wood not a stick to boil a kettle may be 
taken by the neighbouring poor lest the pheasants should 
be disturbed or a rabbit be picked up. 

Some more of the old dame's recollections will be 
given in the next chapter, showing what the condition 
of the people was in this district about the year 1830, 
when the poor farm-labourers were driven by hunger 
and misery to revolt against their masters — the farmers 
who were everywhere breaking up the downs with the 
plough to sow more and still more corn, who were grow- 
ing very fat and paying higher and higher rents to their 
fat landlords, while the wretched men that drove the 
plough had hardly enough to satisfy their hunger. 




CHAPTER XVIII 



Old Wiltshire Days — Continued 

An old Wiltshire woman's memories — Her home — Work 
on a farm — A little bird-scarer — Housekeeping — 
The agricultural labourers' rising — Villagers out of 
work — Relief work — A game of ball with barley 
bannocks — Sheep-stealing — A poor man hanged — 
Temptations to steal — A sheep-stealing shepherd— 
A sheep-stealing farmer — Story of Ebenezer Garlick 
— A sheep-stealer at Chitterne — The law and the 
judges — A "human devil" in a black cap — How the 
revolting labourers were punished — A last scene at 
Salisbury Court House — Inquest on a murdered 
man — Policy of the farmers 

The story of her early life told by my old friend Joan, 
aged 94, will serve to give some idea of the extreme 
poverty and hard suffering life of the agricultural labour- 
ers during the thirties of last century, at a time when 
farmers were exceedingly prosperous and landlords draw- 
ing high rents. 

She was 3 years old when her mother died, after the 
birth of a boy, the last of eleven children. There was 

214 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 215 

a dame's school in their little village of Fonthill Abbey, 
but the poverty of the family would have made it impos- 
sible for Joan to attend had it not been for an unselfish 
person residing there, a Mr. King, who was anxious 
that every child should be taught its letters. He paid 
for little Joan's schooling from the age of 4 to 8; and 
now, in the evening of her life, when she sits by the fire 
with her book, she blesses the memory of the man, dead 
these seventy or eighty years, who made this solace pos- 
sible for her. 

After the age of 8 there could be no more school, for 
now all the older children had gone out into the world 
to make their own poor living, the boys to work on 
distant farms, the girls to service or to be wives, and 
Joan was wanted at home to keep house for her father, 
to do the washing, mending, cleaning, cooking, and to 
be mother to her little brother as well. 

Her father was a ploughman, at seven shillings a week ; 
but when Joan was 10 he met with a dreadful accident 
when ploughing with a couple of young or intractable 
oxen; in trying to stop them he got entangled in the 
ropes and one of his legs badly broken by the plough. 
As a result it was six months before he could leave his 
cottage. The overseer of the parish, a prosperous farmer 
who had a large farm a couple of miles away, came to 
inquire into the matter and see what was to be done. 
His decision was that the man would receive three shill- 
ings a week until able to start work again, and as that 
would just serve to keep him, the children must go out 
to work. Meanwhile, one of the married daughters had 
come to look after her father in the cottage, and that 
set the little ones free. 



216 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

The overseer said he would give them work on his 
farm and pay them a few pence apiece and give them 
their meals; so to his farm they went, returning each 
evening home. That was her first place, and from that 
time on she was a toiler, indoors and out, but mainly 
in the fields, till she was past 85 ; — seventy-five years of 
hard work — then less and less as her wonderful strength 
diminished, and her sons and daughters were getting 
grey, until now at the age of 94 she does very little — 
practically nothing. 

In that first place she had a very hard master in the 
farmer and overseer. He was known in all the neigh- 
bourhood as "Devil Turner," and even at that time, when 
farmers had their men under their heel as it were, he 
was noted for his savage tyrannical disposition ; also for 
a curious sardonic humour, which displayed itself in 
the forms of punishment he inflicted on the workmen 
who had the ill-luck to offend him. The man had to 
take the punishment, however painful or disgraceful, 
without a murmur, or go and starve. Every morning 
thereafter Joan and her little brother, aged 7, had to be 
up in time to get to the farm at five o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and if it was raining or snowing or bitterly cold, so 
much the worse for them, but they had to be there, for 
Devil Turner's bad temper was harder to bear than bad 
weather. Joan was a girl of all work, in and out of 
doors, and, in severe weather, when there was nothing 
else for her to do, she would be sent into the fields to 
gather flints, the coldest of all tasks for her little hands. 

"But what could your little brother, a child of 7, do 
in such a place?" I asked. 

She laughed when she told me of her little brother's 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 217 

very first day at the farm. The farmer was, for a devil, 
considerate, and gave him something very light for a 
beginning, which was to scare the birds from the ricks. 
"And if they will come back you must catch them," he 
said, and left the little fellow to obey the difficult com- 
mand as he could. The birds that worried him most 
were the fowls, for however often he hunted them away 
they would come back again. Eventually, he found some 
string, with which he made some little loops fastened to 
sticks, and these he arranged on a spot of ground he 
had cleared, scattering a few grains of corn on it to 
attract the "birds." By this means he succeeded in 
capturing three of the robbers, and when the farmer 
came round at noon to see how he was getting on, the 
little fellow showed him his captures. "These are not 
birds," said the farmer, "they are fowls, and don't you 
trouble yourself any more about them, but keep your 
eye on the sparrows and little birds and rooks and jack- 
daws that come to pull the straws out." 

That was how he started ; then from the ricks to bird- 
scaring in the fields and to other tasks suited to one of 
his age, not without much suffering and many tears. The 
worst experience was the punishment of standing motion- 
less for long hours at a time on a chair placed out in 
the yard, full in sight of the windows of the house, so 
that he could be seen by the inmates; the hardest, the 
cruellest task that could be imposed on him would come 
as a relief after this. Joan suffered no punishment of 
that kind; she was very anxious to please her master 
and worked hard ; but she was an intelligent and spirited 
child, and as the sole result of her best efforts was that 
more and more work was put on her, she revolted against 



218 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



such injustice, and eventually, tried beyond endurance, 
she ran away home and refused to go back to the farm 
any more. She found some work in the village; for 
now her sister had to go back to her husband, and Joan 
had to take her place and look after her father and the 




JOAN 



house as well as earn something to supplement the three 
shillings a week they had to live on. 

After about nine months her father was up and out 
again and went back to the plough; for just then a great 
deal of down was being broken up and brought under 
cultivation on account of the high price of wheat and 
good ploughmen were in request. He was lame, the 
injured limb being now considerably shorter than the 
other, and when ploughing he could only manage to 
keep on his legs by walking with the longer one in the 
furrow and the other on the higher ground. But after 
struggling on for some months in this way, suffering 
much pain and his strength declining, he met with a 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 219 

fresh accident and was laid up once more in his cottage, 
and from that time until his death he did no more farm 
work. Joan and her little brother lived or slept at home 
and worked to keep themselves and him. 

Now in this, her own little story, and in her account 
of the condition of the people at that time; also in the 
histories of other old men and women whose memories 
go back as far as hers, supplemented by a little reading 
in the newspapers of that day, I can understand how it 
came about that these poor labourers, poor, spiritless 
slaves as they had been made by long years of extremest 
poverty and systematic oppression, rose at last against 
their hard masters and smashed the agricultural machines, 
and burnt ricks and broke into houses to destroy and 
plunder their contents. It was a desperate, a mad ad- 
venture — these gatherings of half-starved yokels, armed 
with sticks and axes, and they were quickly put down 
and punished in a way that even William the Bastard 
would not have considered as too lenient. But oppres- 
sion had made them mad; the introduction of threshing 
machines was but the last straw, the culminating act of 
the hideous system followed by landlords and their ten- 
ants — the former to get the highest possible rent for his 
land, the other to get his labour at the lowest possible 
rate. It was a compact between landlord and tenant 
aimed against the labourer. It was not merely the fact 
that the wages of a strong man were only seven shillings 
a week at the outside, a sum barely sufficient to keep 
him and his family from starvation and rags (as a fact 
it was not enough, and but for a little poaching and 
stealing he could not have lived), but it was customary, 
especially on the small farms, to get rid of the men after 



220 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

the harvest and leave them to exist the best way they 
could during the bitter winter months. Thus every vil- 
lage, as a rule, had its dozen or twenty or more men 
thrown out each year — good steady men, with families 
dependent on them; and besides these there were the 
aged and weaklings and the lads who had not yet got 
a place. The misery of these out-of-work labourers 
was extreme. They would go to the woods and gather 
faggots of dead wood, which they would try to sell in 
the villages; but there were few who could afford to 
buy of them; and at night they would skulk about the 
fields to rob a swede or two to satisfy the cravings of 
hunger. 

In some parishes the farmer overseers were allowed 
to give relief work — out of the rates, it goes without say- 
ing — to these unemployed men of the village who had 
been discharged in October or November and would be 
wanted again when the winter was over. They would 
be put to flint-gathering in the fields, their wages being 
four shillings a week. Some of the very old people of 
Winterbourne Bishop, when speaking of the principal 
food of the labourers at that time, the barley bannock 
and its exceeding toughness, gave me an amusing account 
of a game of balls invented by the flint-gatherers, just for 
the sake of a little fun during their long weary day in 
the fields, especially in cold, frosty weather. The men 
would take their dinners with them, consisting of a few 
barley balls or cakes, in their coat pockets, and at noon 
they would gather at one spot to enjoy their meal, and 
seat themselves on the ground in a very wide circle, the 
men about ten yards apart, then each one would produce 
his bannocks and start throwing, aiming at some other 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 221 

man's face; there were hits and misses and great excite- 
ment and hilarity for twenty or thirty minutes, after 
which the earth and gravel adhering to the balls would 
be wiped off, and they would set themselves to the hard 
task of masticating and swallowing the heavy stuff. 

At sunset they would go home to a supper of more 
barley bannocks, washed down with hot water flavoured 
with some aromatic herb or weed, and then straight to 
bed to get warm, for there was little firing. 

It was not strange that sheep-stealing was one of the 
commonest offences against the law at that time, in spite 
of the dreadful penalty. Hunger made the people reck- 
less. My old friend Joan, and other old persons, have 
said to me that it appeared in those days that the men 
were strangely indifferent and did not seem to care 
whether they were hanged or not. It is true they did 
not hang very many of them — the judge as a rule, after 
putting on his black cap and ordering them to the gallows, 
would send in a recommendation to mercy for most of 
them; but the mercy of that time was like that of the 
wicked, exceedingly cruel. Instead of swinging, it was 
transportation for life, or for fourteen, and, at the very 
least, seven years. Those who have read Clarke's terrible 
book, "For the Term of His Natural Life," know (in 
a way) what these poor Wiltshire labourers, who in 
most cases were never more heard of by their wives 
and children, were sent to endure in Australia and Tas- 
mania. 

And some were hanged ; my friend Joan named some 
people she knows in the neighbourhood who are the 
grandchildren of a young man with a wife and family 
of small children who was hanged at Salisbury. She 



222 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

had a vivid recollection of this case because it had seemed 
so hard, the man having been maddened by want when 
he took a sheep; also because when he was hanged his 
poor young wife travelled to the place of slaughter to 
beg for his body, and had it brought home and buried 
decently in the village churchyard. 

How great the temptation to steal sheep must have 
been, anyone may know by merely walking about among 
the fields in this part of the country to see how the sheep 
are folded and left by night unguarded, often at long 
distances from the village, in distant fields and on the 
downs. Even in the worst times it was never customary, 
never thought necessary, to guard the flock by night. 
Many cases could be given to show how easy it was to 
steal sheep. One quite recent, about twenty years ago, 
is of a shepherd who was frequently sent with sheep to 
the fairs, and who on his way to Wilton fair with a 
flock one night turned aside to open a fold and let out 
nineteen sheep. On arriving at the fair he took out 
the stolen sheep and sold them to a butcher of his ac- 
quaintance who sent them up to London. But he had 
taken too many from one flock ; they were quickly missed, 
and by some lucky chance it was found out and the 
shepherd arrested. He was sentenced to eight months' 
hard labour, and it came out during the trial that this 
poor shepherd, whose wages were fourteen shillings a 
week, had a sum of £400 to his credit in a Salisbury bank. 

Another case which dates far back is that of a farmer 
named Day, who employed a shepherd or drover to take 
sheep to the fairs and markets and steal sheep for him 
on the way. It is said that he went on at this game for 
years before it was discovered. Eventually master and 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 223 

man quarrelled and the drover gave information, where- 
upon Day was arrested and lodged in Fisherton Jail at 
Salisbury. Later he was sent to take his trial at Devizes, 
on horseback, accompanied by two constables. At the 
"Druid's Head," a public house on the way, the three 
travellers alighted for refreshments, and there Day suc- 
ceeded in giving them the slip, and jumping on a fast 
horse, standing ready saddled for him, made his escape. 
Farmer Day never returned to the Plain and was never 
heard of again. 

There is an element of humour in some of the sheep- 
stealing stories of the old days. At one village where 
I stayed often, I heard about a certain Ebenezer Garlick, 
who was commonly called, in allusion no doubt to his 
surname, "Sweet Vi'lets." He was a sober, hard-work- 
ing man, an example to most, but there was this against 
him, that he cherished a very close friendship with a 
poor, disreputable, drunken loafer nicknamed "Flitter- 
mouse," who spent most of his time hanging about the 
old coaching inn at the place for the sake of tips. Sweet 
Vi'lets was always giving coppers and sixpences to this 
man, but one day they fell out when Flittermouse begged 
for a shilling. He must, he said, have a shilling, he 
couldn't do with less, and when the other refused he 
followed him, demanding the money with abusive words, 
to everybody's astonishment. Finally Sweet Vi'lets 
turned on him and told him to go to the devil. Flitter- 
mouse in a rage went straight to the constable and 
denounced his patron as a sheep-stealer. He, Flitter- 
mouse, had been his servant and helper, and on the very 
last occasion of stealing a sheep he had got rid of the 
skin and offal by throwing them down an old disused 



224 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

well at the top of the village street. To the well the 
constable went with ropes and hooks, and succeeded in 
fishing up the remains described, and he thereupon ar- 
rested Garlick and took him before a magistrate, who 
committed him for trial. Flittermouse was the only 
witness for the prosecution, and the judge in his summing 
up said that, taking into consideration Garlick's known 
character in the village as a sober, diligent, honest man, 
it would be a little too much to hang him on the unsup- 
ported testimony of a creature like Flittermouse, who 
was half fool and half scoundrel. The jury, pleased and 
very much surprised at being directed to let a man off, 
obediently returned a verdict of Not Guilty, and Sweet 
Vi'Iets returned from Salisbury triumphant, to be con- 
gratulated on his escape by all the villagers, who, how- 
ever, slyly winked and smiled at one another. 

Of sheep-stealing stories I will relate one more — a 
case which never came into court and was never dis- 
covered. It was related to me by a middle-aged man, 
a shepherd of Warminster, who had it from his father, 
a shepherd of Chitterne, one of the lonely, isolated vil- 
lages on Salisbury Plain, between the Avon and the 
Wylye. His father had it from the person who com- 
mitted the crime and was anxious to tell it to some one, 
and knew that the shepherd was his true friend, a silent, 
safe man. He was a farm-labourer, named Shergold — 
one of the South Wiltshire surnames very common in 
the early part of last century, which now appear to be 
dying out — described as a very big, powerful man, full 
of life and energy. He had a wife and several young 
children to keep, and the time was near mid-winter; 
Shergold was out of work, having been discharged from 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 225 

the farm at the end of the harvest ; it was an exceptionally 
cold season and there was no food and no firing in the 
house. 

One evening in late December a drover arrived at 
Chitterne with a flock of sheep which he was driving to 
Tilshead, another downland village several miles away. 
He was anxious to get to Tilshead that night and wanted 
a man to help him. Shergold was on the spot and under- 
took to go with him for the sum of fourpence. They 
set out when it was getting dark ; the sheep were put on 
the road, the drover going before the flock and Shergold 
following at the tail. It was a cold, cloudy night, threat- 
ening snow, and so dark that he could hardly distinguish 
the dim forms of even the hindmost sheep, and by and 
by the temptation to steal one assailed him. For how 
easy it would be for him to do it ! With his tremendous 
strength he could kill and hide a sheep very quickly 
without making any sound whatever to alarm the drover. 
He was very far ahead; Shergold could judge the dis- 
tance by the sound of his voice when he uttered a call 
or shout from time to time, and by the barking of the 
dog, as he flew up and down, first on one side of the road, 
then on the other, to keep the flock well on it. And he 
thought of what a sheep would be to him and to his 
hungry ones at home until the temptation was too strong, 
and suddenly lifting his big, heavy stick he brought it 
down with such force on the head of a sheep as to drop 
it with its skull crushed, dead as a stone. Hastily picking 
it up he ran a few yards away and placed it among the 
furze-bushes, intending to take it home on his way 
back, and then returned to the flock. 

They arrived at Tilshead in the small hours, and after 



226 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

receiving his fourpence he started for home, walking 
rapidly and then running to be in time, but when he got 
back to where the sheep was lying the dawn was coming, 
and he knew that before he could get to Chitterne with 
that heavy burden on his back people would be getting 
up in the village and he would perhaps be seen. The 
only thing to do was to hide the sheep and return for it 
on the following night. Accordingly he carried it away 
a couple of hundred yards to a pit or small hollow in 
the down full of bramble and furze-bushes, and here he 
concealed it, covering it with a mass of dead bracken 
and herbage, and left it. That afternoon the long-threat- 
ening snow began to fall, and with snow on the ground 
he dared not go to recover his sheep, since his footprints 
would betray him ; he must wait once more for the snow 
to melt. But the snow fell all night, and what must his 
feelings have been when he looked at it still falling in 
the morning and knew that he could have gone for the 
sheep with safety, since all traces would have been quickly 
obliterated ! 

Once more there was nothing to do but wait patiently 
for the snow to cease falling and for the thaw. But 
how intolerable it was ; for the weather continued bitterly 
cold for many days, and the whole country was white. 
During those hungry days even that poor comfort of 
sleeping or dozing away the time was denied him. for 
the danger of discovery was ever present to his mind, 
and Shergold was not one of the callous men who had 
become indifferent to their fate; it was his first crime, 
and he loved his own life and his wife and children, crying 
to him for food. And the food for them was lying there 
on the down, close by, and he could not get it! Roast 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 227 

mutton, boiled mutton — mutton in a dozen delicious 
forms — the thought of it was as distressing, as madden- 
ing, as that of the peril he was in. 

It was a full fortnight before the wished thaw came; 
then with fear and trembling he went for his sheep, only 
to find that it had been pulled to pieces and the flesh 
devoured by dogs and foxes! 

From these memories of the old villagers I turn to 
the newspapers of the day to make a few citations. 

The law as it was did not distinguish between a case 
of the kind just related, of the starving, sorely tempted 
Shergold, and that of the systematic thief: sheep-stealing 
was a capital offence and the man must hang, unless 
recommended to mercy, and we know what was meant 
by "mercy" in those days. That so barbarous a law 
existed within memory of people to be found living in 
most villages appears almost incredible to us ; but despite 
the recommendations to "mercy" usual in a large majority 
of cases, the law of that time was not more horrible 
than the temper of the men who administered it. There 
are good and bad among all, and in all professions, but 
there is also a black spot in most, possibly in all hearts, 
which may be developed to almost any extent, and change 
the justest, wisest, most moral men into "human devils" 
— the phrase invented by Canon Wilberforce in another 
connexion. In reading the old reports and the expres- 
sions used by the judges in their summings up and sen- 
tences, it is impossible not to believe that the awful power 
they possessed, and its constant exercise, had not only 
produced the inevitable hardening effect, but had made 
them cruel in the true sense of the word. Their pleasure 



228 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

in passing dreadful sentences was very thinly disguised, 
indeed, by certain lofty conventional phrases as to the 
necessity of upholding the law, morality, and religion; 
they were, indeed, as familiar with the name of the Deity 
as any ranter in a conventicle, and the "enormity of the 
crime" was an expression as constantly used in the case 
of the theft of a loaf of bread, or of an old coat left 
hanging on a hedge, by some ill-clad, half-starved wretch, 
as in cases of burglary, arson, rape, and murder. 

It is surprising to find how very few the real crimes 
were in those days, despite the misery of the people; 
that nearly all the "crimes" for which men were sen- 
tenced to the gallows and to transportation for life, or 
for long terms, were offences which would now be 
sufficiently punished by a few weeks', or even a few 
days', imprisonment. Thus in April, 1825, I note that 
Mr. Justice Park commented on the heavy appearance 
of the calendar. It was not so much the number (170) 
of the offenders that excited his concern as it was the 
nature of the crimes with which they were charged. The 
worst crime in this instance was sheep-stealing! 

Again, this same Mr. Justice Park, at the Spring 
Assizes at Salisbury, 1827, said that though the calendar 
was a heavy one, he was happy to find on looking at 
the depositions of the principal cases, that they were not 
of a very serious character. Nevertheless he passed sen- 
tence of death on twenty-eight persons, among them 
being one for stealing half a crown! 

Of the twenty-eight all but three were eventually 
reprieved, one of the fated three being a youth of 19, 
who was charged with stealing a mare and pleaded guilty 
in spite of a warning from the judge not to do so. This 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 229 

irritated the great man who had the power of life and 
death in his hand. In passing sentence the judge "ex- 
patiated on the prevalence of the crime of horse-stealing 
and the necessity of making an example. The enormity 
of Read's crime rendered him a proper example, and he 
would therefore hold out no hope of mercy towards 
him." As to the plea of guilty, he remarked that nowa- 
days too many persons pleaded guilty, deluded with the 
hope that it would be taken into consideration and they 
would escape the severer penalty. He was determined 
to put a stop to that sort of thing ; if Read had not pleaded 
guilty no doubt some extenuating circumstance would 
have come up during the trial and he would have saved 
his life. 

There, if ever, spoke the "human devil" in a black 
cap! 

I find another case of a sentence of transportation 
for life on a youth of 18, named Edward Baker, for 
stealing a pocket-handkerchief. Had he pleaded guilty 
it might have been worse for him. 

At the Salisbury Spring Assizes, 1830, Mr. Justice 
Gazalee, addressing the grand jury, said that none of 
the crimes appeared to be marked with circumstances 
of great moral turpitude. The prisoners numbered 130; 
he passed sentences of death on twenty-nine, life trans- 
portations on five, fourteen years on five, seven years 
on eleven, and various terms of hard labour on the others. 

The severity of the magistrates at the quarter-sessions 
was equally revolting. I notice in one case, where the 
leading magistrate on the bench was a great local mag- 
nate, an M.P. for Salisbury, etc., a poor fellow with the 
unfortunate name of Moses Snook was charged with 



230 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

stealing a plank ten feet long, the property of the afore- 
said local magnate, M.P., etc., and sentenced to fourteen 
years' transportation. Sentenced by the man who owned 
the plank, worth perhaps a shilling or two ! 

When such was the law of the land and the temper 
of those who administered it — judges and magistrates 
or landlords — what must the misery of the people have 
been to cause them to rise in revolt against their masters ! 
They did nothing outrageous even in the height of their 
frenzy ; they smashed the threshing machines, burnt some 
ricks, while the maddest of them broke into a few houses 
and destroyed their contents; but they injured no man; 
yet they knew what they were facing — the gallows or 
transportation to the penal settlements ready for their 
reception at the Antipodes. It is a pity that the history 
of this rising of the agricultural labourer, the most patient 
and submissive of men, has never been written. Nothing, 
in fact, has ever been said of it except from the point 
of view of landowners and farmers, but there is ample 
material for a truer and a moving narrative, not only 
in the brief reports in the papers of the time, but also 
in the memories of many persons still living, and of their 
children and children's children, preserved in many a 
cottage throughout the south of England. 

Hopeless as the revolt was and quickly suppressed, 
it had served to alarm the landlords and their tenants, 
and taken in conjunction with other outbreaks, notably 
at Bristol, it produced a sense of anxiety in the mind of 
the country generally. The feeling found a somewhat 
amusing expression in the House of Commons, in a 
motion of Mr. Perceval, on 14 February, 1831. This 
was to move an address to His Majesty to appoint a 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 231 

day of a general fast throughout the United Kingdom. 
He said that "the state of the country called for a measure 
like this — that it was a state of political and religious 
disorganization — that the elements of the Constitution 
were being hourly loosened — that in this land there was 
no attachment, no control, no humility of spirit, no 
mutual confidence between the poor man and the rich, 
the employer and the employed; but fear and mistrust 
and aversion, where, in the time of our fathers, there 
was nothing but brotherly love and rejoicing before the 
Lord." 

The House was cynical and smilingly put the matter 
by, but the anxiety was manifested plainly enough in 
the treatment meted out to the poor men who had been 
arrested and were tried before the Special Commissions 
sent down to Salisbury, Winchester, and other towns. 
No doubt it was a pleasant time for the judges; at Salis- 
bury thirty-four poor fellows were sentenced to death; 
thirty-three to be transported for life, ten for fourteen 
years, and so on. 

And here is one last little scene about which the reports 
in the newspapers of the time say nothing, but which I 
have from one who witnessed and clearly remembers it, 
a woman of 95, whose whole life has been passed at a 
village within sound of the Salisbury Cathedral bells. 

It was when the trial was ended, when those who were 
found guilty and had been sentenced were brought out 
of the court-house to be taken back to prison, and from 
all over the Plain and from all parts of Wiltshire their 
womenfolk had come to learn their fate, and were gath- 
ered, a pale, anxious, weeping crowd, outside the gates. 
The sentenced men came out looking eagerly at the people 



232 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

until they recognized their own and cried out to them 
to be of good cheer. " Tis hanging for me," one would 
say, "but there'll perhaps be a recommendation to mercy, 
so don't you fret till you know." Then another: "Don't 
go on so, old mother, 'tis only for life I'm sent." And 
yet another: "Don't you cry, old girl, 'tis only fourteen 
years I've got, and maybe I'll live to see you all again." 
And so on, as they filed out past their weeping women 
on their way to Fisherton Jail, to be taken thence to the 
transports in Portsmouth and Plymouth harbours want- 
ing to convey their living freights to that hell on earth 
so far from home. Not criminals but good, brave men 
were these! — Wiltshiremen of that strong, enduring, 
patient class, who not only as labourers on the land but 
on many a hard-fought field in many parts of the world 
from of old down to our war of a few years ago in 
Africa, have shown the stuff that was in them! 

But alas! for the poor women who were left — for 
the old mother who could never hope to see her boy 
again, and for the wife and her children who waited 
and hoped against hope through long toiling years, 

And dreamed and started as they slept 
For joy that he was come, 

but waking saw his face no more. Very few, so far 
as I can make out, not more than one in five or six, 
ever returned. 

This, it may be said, was only what they might have 
expected, the law being what it was — just the ordinary 
thing. The hideous part of the business was that, as an 
effect of the alarm created in the minds of those who 
feared injury to their property and loss of power to 
oppress the poor labourers, there was money in plenty 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 



233 



subscribed to hire witnesses for the prosecution. It was 
necessary to strike terror into the people. The smell 
of blood-money brought out a number of scoundrels 
who for a few pounds were only too ready to swear 
away the life of any man, and it was notorious that 
numbers of poor fellows were condemned in this way. 

One incident as to this point may be given in con- 
clusion of this chapter about old unhappy things. It 
relates not to one of those who were sentenced to the 




TiTHl BARN 
TISBVRY. 



gallows or to transportation, but to an inquest and the 
treatment of the dead. 

I have spoken in the last chapter of the mob that visited 
Hindon, Fonthill, and other villages. They ended their 
round at Pytt House, near Tisbury, where they broke 
up the machinery. On that occasion a body of yeomanry 
came on the scene, but arrived only after the mob had 
accomplished its purpose of breaking up the threshing 
machines. When the troops appeared the "rioters," as 
they were called, made off into the woods and escaped; 
but before they fled one of them had met his death. A 
number of persons from the farms and villages around 



234 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

had gathered at the spot and were looking on, when 
one, a farmer from the neighbouring village of Chilmark, 
snatched a gun from a gamekeeper's hand and shot one 
of the rioters, killing him dead. On 27 January, 1831, 
an inquest was held on the body, and some one was 
found to swear that the man had been shot by one of 
the yeomanry, although it was known to everybody that, 
when the man was shot, the troop had not yet arrived 
on the scene. The man, this witness stated, had attacked, 
or threatened, one of the soldiers with his stick, and had 
been shot. This was sufficient for the coroner; he in- 
structed his jury to bring in a verdict of "Justifiable 
homicide," which they obediently did. "This verdict," 
the coroner then said, "entailed the same consequences 
as an act of felo-de-se, and he felt that he could not give 
a warrant for the burial of the deceased. However 
painful the duty devolved on him in thus adding to the 
sorrows of the surviving relations, the law appeared too 
clear to him to admit of an alternative." 

The coroner was just as eager as the judges to exhibit 
his zeal for the gentry, who were being injured in their 
interests by these disturbances; and though he could not 
hang anybody, being only a coroner, he could at any rate 
kick the one corpse brought before him. Doubtless the 
"surviving relations," for whose- sorrows he had ex- 
pressed sympathy, carried the poor murdered man off 
by night to hide him somewhere in the earth. 

After the law had been thus vindicated and all the 
business done with, even to the corpse-kicking by the 
coroner, the farmers were still anxious and began to 
show it by holding meetings and discussions on the con- 
ditions of the labourers. Everybody said that the men 



OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS 235 

had been very properly punished; but at the same time 
it was admitted that they had some reason for their 
discontent, that, with bread so dear, it was hardly pos- 
sible for a man with a family to support himself on 
seven shillings a week, and it was generally agreed to 
raise the wages one shilling. But by and by when the 
anxiety had quite died out, when it was found that the 
men were more submissive than they had ever been, the 
lesson they had received having sunk deep into their 
minds, they cut off the extra shilling, and wages were 
what they had been — seven shillings a week for a hard- 
working seasoned labourer, with a family to keep, and 
from four to six shillings for young unmarried men 
and for women, even for those who did as much work 
in the field as any man. 

But there were no more risings. 




NCWTON TONY om nt DomNE 



CHAPTER XIX 
The Shepherd's Return 

Yarnborough Castle sheep-fair — Caleb leaves Doveton 
and goes into Dorset — A land of strange happenings 
— He is home-sick and returns to Winterbourne 
Bishop — Joseph, his brother, leaves home — His 
meeting with Caleb's old master — Settles in Dorset 
and is joined by his sister Hannah — They marry and 
have children — I go to look for them — Joseph Baw- 
combe in extreme old age — Hannah in decline 

Caleb's shepherding period in Doveton came to a some- 
what sudden conclusion. It was nearing the end of 
August and he was beginning to think about the sheep 
which would have to be taken to the "Castle" sheep-fair 
on 5 October, and it appeared strange to him that his 
master had so far said nothing to him on the subject. 
By "Castle" he meant Yarnborough Castle, the name 

236 



THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN 237 

of a vast prehistoric earth-work on one of the high 
downs between Warminster and Amesbury. There is 
no village there and no house near; it is nothing but an 
immense circular wall and trench, inside of which the 
fair is held. It was formerly one of the most important 
sheep-fairs in the country, but for the last two or three 
decades has been falling off and is now of little account. 
When Bawcombe was shepherd at Doveton it was still 
great, and when he first went there as Mr. Ellerby's 
head-shepherd he found himself regarded as a person 
of considerable importance at the Castle. Before setting 
out with the sheep he asked for his master's instructions 
and was told that when he got to the ground he would 
be directed by the persons in charge to the proper place. 
The Ellerbys, he said, had exhibited and sold their sheep 
there for a period of eighty-eight years, without missing 
a year, and always at the same spot. Every person visit- 
ing the fair on business knew just where to find the 
Ellerbys' sheep, and, he added with pride, they expected 
them to be the best sheep at the Castle. 

One day Mr. Ellerby came to have a talk with his 
shepherd, and in reply to a remark of the latter about 
the October sheep-fair he said that he would have no 
sheep to send. "No sheep to send, Master!" exclaimed 
Caleb in amazement. Then Mr. Ellerby told him that 
he had taken a notion into his head that he wanted to 
go abroad with his wife for a time, and that some person 
had just made him so good an offer for all his sheep 
that he was going to accept it, so that for the first time 
in eighty-eight years there would be no sheep from Dove- 
ton Farm at the Castle fair. When he came back he 
would buy again; but if he could live away from the 



238 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

farm, he would probably never come back — he would 
sell it. 

Caleb went home with a heavy heart and told his wife. 
It grieved her, too, because of her feeling for Mrs. Eller- 
by, but in a little while she set herself to comfort him. 
"Why, what's wrong about it?" she asked. " Twill be 
more'n three months before the year's out, and master'll 
pay for all the time sure, and we can go home to Bishop 
and bide a little without work, and see if that father 
of yours has forgiven 'ee for going away to Warminster." 

So they comforted themselves, and were beginning to 
think with pleasure of home when Mr. Ellerby informed 
his shepherd that a friend of his, a good man though 
not a rich one, was anxious to take him as head-shepherd, 
with good wages and a good cottage rent free. The 
only drawback for the Bawcombes was that it would 
take them still farther from home, for the farm was in 
Dorset, although quite near the Wiltshire border. 

Eventually they accepted the offer, and by the middle 
of September were once more settled down in what was to 
them a strange land. How strange it must have seemed 
to Caleb, how far removed from home and all familiar 
things, when even to this day, more than forty years 
later, he speaks of it as the ordinary modern man might 
speak of a year's residence in Uganda, Tierra del Fuego, 
or the Andaman Islands ! It was a foreign country, and 
the ways of the people were strange to him, and it was 
a land of very strange things. One of the strangest was 
an old ruined church in the neighbourhood of the farm 
where he was shepherd. It was roofless, more than half 
fallen down, and all the standing portion, with the tower, 
overgrown with old ivy; the building itself stood in the 



THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN 239 

centre of a huge round earth-work and trench, with large 
barrows on the ground outside the circle. Concerning 
this church he had a wonderful story: its decay and ruin 
had come about after the great bell in the tower had 
mysteriously disappeared, stolen one stormy night, it was 
believed, by the Devil himself. The stolen bell, it was 
discovered, had been flung into a small river at a distance 
of some miles from the church, and there in summer- 
time, when the water was low, it could be distinctly seen 
lying half buried in the mud at the bottom. But all the 
king's horses and all the king's men couldn't pull it out ; 
the Devil, who pulled the other way, was strongest. 
Eventually some wise person said that a team of white 
oxen would be able to pull it out, and after much seeking 
the white oxen were obtained, and thick ropes were tied 
to the sunken bell, and the cattle were goaded and yelled 
at, and tugged and strained until the bell came up and 
was finally drawn right up to the top of the steep, cliff- 
like bank of the stream. Then one of the teamsters 
shouted in triumph, "Now we've got out the bell, in spite 
of all the devils in hell," and no sooner had he spoken 
the bold words than the ropes parted, and back tumbled 
the bell to its old place at the bottom of the river, where 
it remains to this day. Caleb had once met a man in 
those parts who assured him that he had seen the bell 
with his own eyes, lying nearly buried in mud at the 
bottom of the stream. 

The legend is not in the history of Dorset; a much 
more prosaic account of the disappearance of the bell 
is there given, in which the Devil took no part unless 
he was at the back of the bad men who were concerned 
in the business. But in this strange, remote country, 



240 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

outside of "Wiltsheer," Bawcombe was in a region where 
anything might have happened, where the very soil and 
pasture was unlike that of his native country, and the 
mud adhered to his boots in a most unaccountable way. 
It was almost uncanny. Doubtless he was home-sick, for 
a month or two before the end of the year he asked his 
master to look out for another shepherd. 

This was a great disappointment to the farmer: he 
had gone a distance from home to secure a good shep- 
herd, and had hoped to keep him permanently, and now 
after a single year he was going to lose him. What did 
the shepherd want ? He would do anything to please him, 
and begged him to stay another year. But no, his mind 
was set on going back to his own native village and to 
his own people. And so when his long year was ended 
he took his crook and set out over the hills and valleys, 
followed by a cart containing his "sticks" and wife and 
children. And at home with his old parents and his 
people he was happy once more ; in a short time he found 
a place as head-shepherd, with a cottage in the village, 
and followed his flock on the old familiar down, and 
everything again was as it had been from the beginning 
of life and as he desired it to be even to the end. 

His return resulted incidentally in other changes and 
migrations in the Bawcombe family. His elder brother 
Joseph, unmarried still although his senior by about 
eight years, had not got on well at home. He was a 
person of a peculiar disposition, so silent with so fixed 
and unsmiling an expression, that he gave the idea of a 
stolid, thick-skinned man, but at bottom he was of a 
sensitive nature, and feeling that his master did not treat 
him properly, he gave up his place and was for a long 



THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN 241 

time without one. He was singularly attentive to all 
that fell from Caleb about his wide wanderings and 
strange experiences, especially in the distant Dorset coun- 
try ; and at length, about a year after his brother's return, 
he announced his intention of going away from his native 
place for good to seek his fortune in some distant place 
where his services would perhaps be better appreciated. 
When asked where he intended going, he answered that 
he was going to look for a place in that part of Dorset 
where Caleb had been shepherd for a year and had been 
so highly thought of. 

Now Joseph, being a single man, had no "sticks"; 
all his possessions went into a bundle, which he carried 
tied to his crook, and with his sheep-dog following at 
his heels he set forth early one morning on the most 
important adventure of his life. Then occurred an in- 
stance of what we call a coincidence, but which the 
shepherd of the downs, nursed in the old beliefs and 
traditions, prefers to regard as an act of providence. 

About noon he was trudging along in the turnpike 
road when he was met by a farmer driving in a trap, 
who pulled up to speak to him and asked him if he could 
say how far it was to Winterbourne Bishop. Joseph 
replied that it was about fourteen miles — he had left 
Bishop that morning. 

Then the farmer asked him if he knew a man there 
named Caleb Bawcombe, and if he had a place as shep- 
herd there, as he was now on his way to look for him 
and to try and persuade him to go back to Dorset, where 
he had been his head-shepherd for the space of a year. 

Joseph said that Caleb had a place as head-shepherd 
on a farm at Bishop, that he was satisfied with it, and 



242 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

was moreover one that preferred to bide in his native 
place. 

The farmer was disappointed, and the other added, 
"Maybe you've heard Caleb speak of his elder brother 
Joseph — I be he." 

"What!" exclaimed the farmer. "You're Caleb's 
brother! Where be going then? — to a new place?" 

"I've got no place; I be going to look for a place in 
Dorsetsheer." 

" 'Tis strange to hear you say that," exclaimed the 
farmer. He was going, he said, to see Caleb, and if 
he would not or could not go back to Dorset himself 
to ask him to recommend some man of the village to 
him; for he was tired of the ways of the shepherds of 
his own part of the country, and his heart was set on 
getting a man from Caleb's village, where shepherds 
understood sheep and knew their work. "Now look 
here, shepherd," he continued, "if you'll engage yourself 
to me for a year I'll go no farther but take you right back 
with me in the trap." 

The shepherd was very glad to accept the offer; he 
devoutly believed that in making it the farmer was but 
acting in accordance with the will of a Power that was 
mindful of man and kept watch on him, even on his poor 
servant Joseph, who had left his home and people to be 
a stranger in a strange land. 

So well did servant and master agree that Joseph never 
had occasion to look for another place ; when his master 
died an old man, his son succeeded him as tenant of the 
farm, and he continued with the son until he was past 
work. Before his first year was out, his younger sister, 
Hannah, came to live with him and keep house, and even- 



THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN 243 

tually they both got married, Joseph to a young woman 
of the place, and Hannah to a small working farmer 
whose farm was about a mile from the village. Children 
were born to both, and in time grew up, Joseph's sons 
following their father's vocation, while Hannah's were 
brought up to work on the farm. And some of them, 
too, got married in time and had children of their own. 

These are the main incidents in the lives of Joseph and 
Hannah, related to me at different times by their brother ; 
he had followed their fortunes from a distance, some- 
times getting a message, or hearing of them incidentally, 
but he did not see them. Joseph never returned to his 
native village, and the visits of Hannah to her old home 
had been few and had long ceased. But he cherished 
a deep enduring affection for both; he was always anx- 
iously waiting and hoping for tidings of them, for Joseph 
was now a feeble old man living with one of his sons, 
and Hannah, long a widow, was in declining health, but 
still kept the farm, assisted by one of her sons and two 
unmarried daughters. Though he had not heard for a 
long time it never occurred to him to write, nor did they 
ever write to him. 

Then, when I was staying at Winterbourne Bishop 
and had the intention of shortly paying a visit to Caleb, 
it occurred to me one day to go into Dorset and look for 
these absent ones, so as to be able to give him an account 
of their state. It was not a long journey, and arriving 
at the village I soon found a son of Joseph, a fine-looking 
man, who took me to Jiis cottage, where his wife led me 
into the old shepherd's room. I found him very aged 
in appearance, with a grey face and sunken cheeks, lying 
on his bed and breathing with difficulty ; but when I spoke 



244 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

to him of Caleb a light of joy came into his eyes, and 
he raised himself on his pillows, and questioned me eag- 
erly about his brother's state and family, and begged 
me to assure Caleb that he was still quite well, although 
too feeble to get about much, and that his children were 
taking good care of him. 

From the old brother I went on to seek the young 
sister — there was a difference of more than twenty years 
in their respective ages — and found her at dinner in 
the large old farm-house kitchen. At all events she was 
presiding, the others present being her son, their hired 
labourer, the farm boy, and two unmarried daughters. 
She herself tasted no food. I joined them at their meal, 
and it gladdened and saddened me at the same time to 
be with this woman, for she was Caleb's sister, and was 
attractive in herself, looking strangely young for her 
age, with beautiful dark, soft eyes and but few white 
threads in her abundant black hair. The attraction was 
also in her voice and speech and manner ; but, alas, there 
was that in her face which was painful to witness — the 
signs of long suffering, of nights that bring no refresh- 
ment, an expression in the eyes of one that is looking 
anxiously out into the dim distance — a vast unbounded 
prospect, but with clouds and darkness resting on it. 

It was not without a feeling of heaviness at the heart 
that I said good-bye to her, nor was I surprised when, 
less than a year later, Caleb received news of her death. 




BVTR.COM B£ on imc NMHMBb 



CHAPTER XX 
The Dark People of the Village 

How the materials for this book were obtained — The 
hedgehog-hunter — A gipsy taste — History of a dark- 
skinned family — Hedgehog-eaters — Half-bred and 
true gipsies — Perfect health — Eating carrion — Mys- 
terious knowledge and faculties — The three dark 
Wiltshire types — Story of another dark man of the 
village — Account of Liddy — His shepherding — A 
happy life with horses — Dies of a broken heart — 
His daughter 

I have sometimes laughed to myself when thinking how 
a large part of the material composing this book was 
collected. It came to me in conversations, at intervals, 
during several years, with the shepherd. In his long 
life in his native village, a good deal of it spent on the 
quiet down, he had seen many things it was or would 
be interesting to hear; the things which had interested 
him, too, at the time, and had fallen into oblivion, yet 
might be recovered. I discovered that it was of little 

245 



246 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

use to question him: the one valuable recollection he 
possessed on any subject would, as a rule, not be available 
when wanted; it would lie just beneath the surface so 
to speak, and he would pass and repass over the ground 
without seeing it. He would not know that it was there ; 
it would be like the acorn which a jay or squirrel has 
hidden and forgotten all about, which he will neverthe- 
less recover some day if by chance something occurs to 
remind him of it. The only method was to talk about 
the things he knew, and when by chance he was reminded 
of some old experience or some little observation or 
incident worth hearing, to make a note of it, then wait 
patiently for something else. It was a very slow process, 
but it is not unlike the one we practise always with regard 
to wild nature. We are not in a hurry, but are always 
watchful, with eyes and ears and mind open to what 
may come ; it is a mental habit, and when nothing comes 
we are not disappointed — the act of watching has been 
a sufficient pleasure; and when something does come 
we take it joyfully as if it were a gift — a valuable object 
picked up by chance in our walks. 

When I turned into the shepherd's cottage, if it was 
in winter and he was sitting by the fire, I would sit and 
smoke with him, and if we were in a talking mood I 
would tell him where I had been and what I had heard 
and seen, on the heath, in the woods, in the village, or 
anywhere, on the chance of its reminding him of some- 
thing worth hearing in his past life. 

One Sunday morning, in the late summer, during one 
of my visits to him, I was out walking in the woods and 
found a man of the village, a farm labourer, with his 
small boy hunting for hedgehogs. He had caught and 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 247 

killed two which the boy was carrying. He told me 
he was very fond of the flesh of hedgehogs — "pigs," 
he called them for short ; he said he would not exchange 
one for a rabbit. He always spent his holidays pig-hunt- 
ing ; he had no dog and didn't want one ; he found them 
himself, and his method was to look for the kind of 
place in which they were accustomed to live — a thick 
mass of bramble growing at the side of an old ditch as 
a rule. He would force his way into it and, moving 
round and round, trample down the roots and loose 
earth and dead leaves with his heavy iron-shod boots 
until he broke into the nest or cell of the spiny little 
beast hidden away under the bush. 

He was a short, broad-faced man, with a brown skin, 
black hair, and intensely black eyes. Talking with the 
shepherd that evening I told him of the encounter, and 
remarked that the man was probably a gipsy in blood, 
although a labourer, living in the village and married to 
a woman with blue eyes who belonged to the place. 

This incident reminded him of a family, named Tar- 
gett, in his native village, consisting of four brothers 
and a sister. He knew them first when he was a boy 
himself, but could not remember their parents. "It 
seemed as if they didn't have any," he said. The four 
brothers were very much alike: short, with broad faces, 
black eyes and hair, and brown skins. They were good 
workers, but somehow they were never treated by the 
farmers like the other men. They were paid less wages 
— as much as two to four shillings a week less per man 
— and made to do things that others would not do, and 
generally imposed upon. It was known to every em- 
ployer of labour in the place that they could be imposed 



248 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

upon; yet they were not fools, and occasionally if their 
master went too far in bullying and abusing them and 
compelling them to work overtime every day, they would 
have sudden violent outbursts of rage and go off without 
any pay at all. What became of their sister he never 
knew: but none of the four brothers ever married; they 
lived together always, and two died in the village, the 
other two going to finish their lives in the workhouse. 

One of the curious things about these brothers was 
that they had a passion for eating hedgehogs. They 
had it from boyhood, and as boys used to go a distance 
from home and spend the day hunting in hedges and 
thickets. When they captured a hedgehog they would 
make a small fire in some sheltered spot and roast it, 
and while it was roasting one of them would go to the 
nearest cottage to beg for a pinch of salt, which was 
generally given. 

These, too, I said, must have been gipsies, at all events 
on one side. Where there is a cross the gipsy strain is 
generally strongest, although the children, if brought up 
in the community, often remain in it all their lives; but 
they are never quite of it. Their love of wildness and 
of eating wild flesh remains in them, and it is also prob- 
able that there is an instability of character, a restlessness, 
which the small farmers who usually employ such men 
know and trade on; the gipsy who takes to farm work 
must not look for the same treatment as the big-framed, 
white-skinned man who is as strong, enduring, and un- 
changeable as a draught horse or ox, and constant as 
the sun itself. 

The gipsy element is found in many if not most vil- 
lages in the south of England. I know one large scattered 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 249 

village where it appears predominant — as dirty and dis- 
orderly-looking a place as can be imagined, the ground 
round every cottage resembling a gipsy camp, but worse 
owing to its greater litter of old rags and rubbish strewn 
about. But the people, like all gipsies, are not so poor 
as they look, and most of the cottagers keep a trap and 
pony with which they scour the country for many miles 
around in quest of bones, rags, and bottles, and anything 
else they can buy for a few pence, also anything they 
can "pick up" for nothing. 

This is almost the only kind of settled life which a 
man with a good deal of gipsy blood in him can tolerate; 
it affords some scope for his chaffering and predatory 
instincts and satisfies the roving passion, which is not 
so strong in those of mixed blood. But it is too re- 
spectable or humdrum a life for the true, undegenerate 
gipsy. One wet evening in September last I was prowling 
in a copse near Shrewton, watching the birds, when I 
encountered a young gipsy and recognized him as one 
of a gang of about a dozen I had met several days before 
near Salisbury. They were on their way, they had told 
me, to a village near Shaftesbury, where they hoped 
to remain a week or so. 

"What are you doing here?" I asked my gipsy. 

He said he had been to Idmiston; he had been on his 
legs out in the rain and wet to the skin since morning. 
He didn't mind that much as the wet didn't hurt him 
and he was not tired; but he had eight miles to walk 
yet over the downs to a village on the Wylye where his 
people were staying. 

I remarked that I had thought they were staying over 
Shaftesbury way. 



250 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

He then looked sharply at me. "Ah, yes," he said, 
"I remember we met you and had some talk a fortnight 
ago. Yes, we went there, but they wouldn't have us. 
They soon ordered us off. They advised us to settle 
down if we wanted to stay anywhere. Settle down! 
I'd rather be dead!" 

There spoke the true gipsy; and they are mostly of 
that mind. But what a mind it is for human beings in 
this climate! It is in a year like this of 1909, when a 
long cold winter and a miserable spring, with frosty 
nights lasting well into June, was followed by a cold wet 
summer and a wet autumn, that we can see properly 
what a mind and body is his — how infinitely more per- 
fect the correspondence between organism and environ- 
ment in his case than in ours, who have made our own 
conditions, who have not only houses to live in, but a 
vast army of sanitary inspectors, physicians and bacteri- 
ologists to safeguard us from that wicked stepmother 
who is anxious to get rid of us before our time ! In all 
this miserable year, during which I have met and con- 
versed with and visited many scores of gipsies, I have 
not found one who was not in a cheerful frame of mind, 
even when he was under a cloud with the police on his 
track; nor one with a cold, or complaining of an ache 
in his bones, or of indigestion. 

The subject of gipsies catching cold connects itself 
just now in my mind with that of the gipsies' sense of 
humour. He has that sense, and it makes him happy 
when he is reposing in the bosom of his family and can 
give it free vent; but the instant you appear on the 
scene its gracious outward signs vanish like lightning 
and he is once more the sly, subtle animal, watching you 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 251 

furtively, but with the intensity of Gip the cat, described 
in a former chapter. When you have left him and he 
relaxes the humour will come back to him; for it is a 
humour similar to that of some of the lower animals, 
especially birds of the crow family, and of primitive 
people, only more highly developed, and is concerned 
mainly with the delight of trickery — with getting the 
better of some one and the huge enjoyment resulting 
from the process. 

One morning, between nine and ten o'clock, during the 
excessively cold spell near the end of November, 1909, 
I paid a visit to some gipsies I knew at their camp. The 
men had already gone off for the day, but some of the 
women were there — a young married woman, two big 
girls, and six or seven children. It was a hard frost and 
their sleeping accommodation was just as in the summer- 
time — bundles of straw and old rugs placed in or against 
little half-open canvas and rag shelters; but they all ap- 
peared remarkably well, and some of the children were 
standing on the hard frozen ground with bare feet. They 
assured me that they were all well, that they hadn't caught 
colds and didn't mind the cold. I remarked that I had 
thought the severe frost might have proved too much 
for some of them in that high, unsheltered spot in the 
downs, and that if I had found one of the children down 
with a cold I should have given it a sixpence to comfort 
it. "Oh," cried the young married woman, "there's my 
poor six months' old baby half dead of a cold; he's very 
bad, poor dear, and I'm in great trouble about him." 

"He is bad, the darling!" cried one of the big girls. 
"I'll soon show you how bad he is!" and with that she 
dived into a pile of straw and dragged out a huge fat 



252 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

sleeping baby. Holding it up in her arms she begged 
me to look at it to see how bad it was; the fat baby 
slowly opened its drowsy eyes and blinked at the sun, but 
uttered no sound, for it was not a crying baby, but was 
like a great fat retriever pup pulled out of its warm bed. 

How healthy they are is hardly known even to those 
who make a special study of these aliens, who, albeit 
aliens, are yet more native than any Englishman in the 
land. It is not merely their indifference to wet and cold ; 
more wonderful still is their dog-like capacity of assimi- 
lating food which to us would be deadly. This is indeed 
not a nice or pretty subject, and I will give but one in- 
stance to illustrate my point ; the reader with a squeamish 
stomach may skip the ensuing paragraph. 

An old shepherd of Chitterne relates that a family, 
or gang, of gipsies used to turn up from time to time 
at the village; he generally saw them at lambing-time, 
when one of the heads of the party with whom he was 
friendly would come round to see what he had to give 
them. On one occasion his gipsy friend appeared, and 
after some conversation on general subjects, asked him 
if he had anything in his way. "No, nothing this time," 
said the shepherd. "Lambing was over two or three 
months ago and there's nothing left — no dead lamb. I 
hung up a few cauls on a beam in the old shed, thinking 
they would do for the dogs, but forgot them and they 
went bad and then dried up." 

"They'll do very well for us," said his friend. 

"No, don't you take them!" cried the shepherd in 
alarm ; "I tell you they went bad months ago, and 'twould 
kill anyone to eat such stuff. They've dried up now, 
and are dry and black as old skin." 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 253 

"That doesn't matter — we know how to make them 
all right," said the gipsy. "Soaked with a little salt, then 
boiled, they'll do very well." And off he carried them. 

In reading the reports of the Assizes held at Salis- 
bury from the late eighteenth century down to about 
1840, it surprised me to find how rarely a gipsy appeared 
in that long, sad, monotonous procession of "criminals" 
who passed before the man sitting with his black cap on 
his head, and were sent to the gallows or to the penal 
settlements for stealing sheep and fowls and ducks or 
anything else. Yet the gipsies were abundant then as 
now, living the same wild, lawless life, quartering the 
country, and hanging round the villages to spy out every- 
thing stealable. The man caught was almost invariably 
the poor, slow-minded, heavy-footed agricultural la- 
bourer; the light, quick-moving, cunning gipsy escaped. 
In the "Salisbury Journal" for 1820 I find a communi- 
cation on this subject, in which the writer says that a 
common trick of the gipsies was to dig a deep pit at their 
camp in which to bury a stolen sheep, and on this spot 
they would make their camp fire. If the sheep was not 
missed, or if no report of its loss was made to the police, 
the thieves would soon be able to dig it up and enjoy it ; 
but if inquiries were made they would have to wait until 
the affair had blown over. 

It amused me to find, from an incident related to me 
by a workman in a village where I was staying lately, 
that this simple, ancient device is still practised by the 
gipsies. My informant said that on going out at about 
four o'clock one morning during the late summer he was 
surprised at seeing two gipsies with a pony and cart at 
the spot where a party of them had been encamped a 



254 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

fortnight before. He watched them, himself unseen, 
and saw that they were digging a pit on the spot where 
they had had their fire. They took out several objects 
from the ground, but he was too far away to make out 
what they were. They put them in the cart and covered 
them over, then filled up the pit, trampled the earth well 
down, and put the ashes and burnt sticks back in the 
same place, after which they got into the cart and drove 
off. 

Of course a man, even a nomad, must have some 
place to conceal his treasures or belongings in, and the 
gipsy has no cellar nor attic nor secret cupboard, and 
as for his van it is about the last place in which he would 
bestow anything of value or incriminating, for though 
he is always on the move, he is, moving or sitting still, 
always under a cloud. The ground is therefore the 
safest place to hide things in, especially in a country 
like the Wiltshire Downs, though he may use rocks and 
hollow trees in other districts. His habit is that of the 
jay and magpie, and of the dog with a bone to put by 
till it is wanted. Possibly the rural police have not yet 
discovered this habit of the gipsy. Indeed, the contrast 
in mind and locomotive powers between the gipsy and 
the village policeman has often amused me; the former 
most like the thievish jay, ever on mischief bent; the 
other, who has his eye on him, is more like the portly 
Cochin-China fowl of the farmyard, or the Muscovy 
duck, or stately gobbler. 

To go back. When the buried sheep had to be kept 
too long buried and was found "gone bad" when dis- 
interred, I fancy it made little difference to the diners. 
One remembers Thoreau's pleasure at the spectacle of 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 255 

a crowd of vultures feasting on the carrion of a dead 
horse; the fine healthy appetite and boundless vigour of 
nature filled him with delight. But it is not only some 
of the lower animals — dogs and vultures, for instance 
— which possess this power and immunity from the effects 
of poisons developed in putrid meat; the Greenlanders 
and African savages, and many other peoples in various 
parts of the world, have it as well. 

Sometimes when sitting with gipsies at their wild 
hearth, I have felt curious as to the contents of that 
black pot simmering over the fire. No doubt it often 
contains strange meats, but it would not have been eti- 
quette to speak of such a matter. It is like the pot on 
the fire of the Venezuela savage into which he throws 
whatever he kills with his little poisoned arrows or fishes 
out of the river. Probably my only quarrel with them 
would be about the little fledgelings: it angers me to 
see them beating the bushes in spring in search of small 
nesties and the callow young that are in them. After 
all, the gipsies could retort that my friends the jays and 
magpies are at the same business in April and May. 

It is just these habits of the gipsy which I have de- 
scribed, shocking to the moralist and sanitarian and 
disgusting to the person of delicate stomach, it may be, 
which please me, rather than the romance and poetry 
which the scholar-gipsy enthusiasts are fond of reading 
into him. He is to me a wild, untameable animal of 
curious habits, and interests me as a naturalist accord- 
ingly. It may be objected that being a naturalist occupied 
with the appearance of things, I must inevitably miss 
the one thing which others find. 

In a talk I had with a gipsy a short time ago, he said 



256 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

to me: "You know what the .books say, and we don't. 
But we know other things that are not in the books, and 
that's what we have. It's ours, our own, and you can't 
know it." 

It was well put; but I was not perhaps so entirely 
ignorant as he imagined of the nature of that special 
knowledge, or shall we say faculty, which he claimed. 
I take it to be cunning — the cunning of a wild animal 
with a man's brain — and a small, an infinitesimal, dose 
of something else which eludes us. But that something 
else is not of a spiritual nature: the gipsy has no such 
thing in him; the soul growths are rooted in the social 
instinct, and are developed in those in which that instinct 
is strong. I think that if we analyse that dose of some- 
thing else, we will find that it is still the animal's cunning, 
a special, a sublimated cunning, the fine flower of his 
whole nature, and that it has nothing mysterious in it. 
He is a parasite, but free and as well able to exist free 
as the fox or jackal; but the parasitism pays him well, 
and he has followed it so long in his intercourse with 
social man that it has come to be like an instinct, or secret 
knowledge, and is nothing more than a marvellously keen 
penetration which reveals to him the character and de- 
gree of credulity and other mental weaknesses of his 
subject. 

It is not so much the wind on the heath, brother, as 
the fascination of lawlessness, which makes his life an 
everlasting joy to him; to pit himself against gamekeeper, 
farmer, policeman, and everybody else, and defeat them 
all, to flourish like the parasitic fly on the honey in the 
hive and escape the wrath of the bees. 

I must now return from this long digression to my 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 257 

conversation with the shepherd about the dark people of 
the village. 

There were, I continued, other black-eyed and black- 
haired people in the villages who had no gipsy blood 
in their veins. So far as I could make out there were 
dark people of three originally distinct and widely dif- 
ferent races in the Wiltshire Downs. There was a good 
deal of mixed blood, no doubt, and many dark persons 
could not be identified as belonging to any particular 
race. Nevertheless three distinct types could be traced 
among the dark people, and I took them to be, first, the 
gipsy, rather short of stature,. brown-skinned, with broad 
face and high cheek-bones, like the men we had just been 
speaking of. Secondly, the men and women of white 
skins and good features, who had rather broad faces and 
round heads, and were physically and mentally just as 
good as the best blue-eyed people; these were probably 
the descendants of the dark, broad-faced Wilsetse, who 
came over at the time when the country was being over- 
run with the English and other nations or tribes, and 
who colonized in Wiltshire and gave it their name. The 
third type differed widely from both the others. They 
were smallest in size and had narrow heads and long 
or oval faces, and were very dark, with brown skins; 
they also differed mentally from the others, being of a 
more lively disposition and hotter temper. The char- 
acters which distinguish the ancient British or Iberian 
race appeared to predominate in persons of this type. 

The shepherd said he didn't know much about "all 
that," but he remembered that they once had a man in 
the village who was like the last kind I had described. 
He was a labourer named Tark, who had several sons, 



258 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

and when they were grown up there was a last one born: 
he had to be the last because his mother died when she 
gave him birth; and that last one was like his father, 
small, very dark-skinned, with eyes like sloes, and ex- 
ceedingly lively and active. 

Tark, himself, he said, was the liveliest, most amusing 
man he had ever known, and the quickest to do things, 
whatever it was he was asked to do, but he was not 
industrious and not thrifty. The Tarks were always 
very poor. He had a good ear for music and was a singer 
of the old songs — he seemed to know them all. One of 
his performances was with a pair of cymbals which he 
had made for himself out of some old metal plates, and 
with these he used to play while dancing about, clashing 
them in time, striking them on his head, his breast, and 
legs. In these dances with the cymbals he would whirl 
and leap about in an astonishing way, standing sometimes 
on his hands, then on his feet, so that half the people 
in the village used to gather at his cottage to watch his 
antics on a summer evening. 

One afternoon he was coming down the village street 
and saw the blacksmith standing near his cottage looking 
up at a tall fir tree which grew there on his ground. 
"What be looking at?" cried Tark. The blacksmith 
pointed to a branch, the lowest branch of all, but about 
forty feet from the ground, and said a chaffinch had 
his nest in it, about three feet from the trunk, which his 
little son had set his heart on having. He had promised 
to get it down for him, but there was no long ladder and 
he didn't know how to get it. 

Tark laughed and said that for half a gallon of beer 
he would go up legs first and take the nest and bring 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 259 

it down in one hand, which he would not use in climbing, 
and would come down as he went up, head first. 

"Do it, then," said the blacksmith, "and I'll stand the 
half gallon." 

Tark ran to the tree, and turning over and standing 
on his hands, clasped the bole with his legs and then with 
his arms and went up to the branch, when taking the 
nest and holding it in one hand, he came down head first 
to the ground in safety. 

There were other anecdotes of his liveliness and agility. 
Then followed the story of the youngest son, known as 
Liddy. "I don't rightly know," said Caleb, "what the 
name was he was given when they christened 'n; but 
he were always called Liddy, and nobody knowed any 
other name for him." 

Liddy's grown-up brothers all left home when he was 
a small boy: one enlisted and was sent to India and never 
returned ; the other two went to America, so it was said. 
He was 12 years old when his father died, and he had to 
shift for himself ; but he was no worse off on that account, 
as they had always been very poor owing to poor Tark's 
love of beer. Before long he got employed by a small 
working farmer who kept a few cows and a pair of horses 
and used to buy wethers to fatten them, and these the 
boy kept on the down. 

Liddy was always a "leetel chap," and looked no more 
than 9 when 12, so that he could do no heavy work; 
but he was a very willing and active little fellow, with 
a sweet temper, and so lively and full of fun as to be 
a favourite with everybody in the village. The men 
would laugh at his pranks, especially when he came from 
the fields on the old plough horse and urged him to a 



260 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

gallop, sitting with his face to the tail; and they would 
say that he was like his father, and would never be much 
good except to make people laugh. But the women had 
a tender feeling for him, because, although motherless 
and very poor, he yet contrived to be always clean and 
neat. He took the greatest care of his poor clothes, 
washing and mending them himself. He also took an 
intense interest in his wethers, and almost every day 
he would go to Caleb, tending his flock on the down, to 
sit by him and ask a hundred questions about sheep and 
their management. He looked on Caleb, as head-shep- 
herd on a good-sized farm, as the most important and 
most fortunate person he knew, and was very proud to 
have him as guide, philosopher, and friend 

Now it came to pass that once in a small lot of thirty 
or forty wethers which the farmer had bought at a sheep- 
fair and brought home it was discovered that one was 
a ewe — a ewe that would perhaps at some future day 
have a lamb ! Liddy was greatly excited at the discovery ; 
he went to Caleb and told him about it, almost crying at 
the thought that his master would get rid of it. For 
what use would it be to him? but what a loss it would 
be! And at last, plucking up courage, he went to the 
farmer and begged and prayed to be allowed to keep the 
ewe, and the farmer laughed at him ; but he was a little 
touched at the boy's feeling, and at last consented. Then 
Liddy was the happiest boy in the village, and whenever 
he got the chance he would go out to Caleb on the down 
to talk about and give him news of the one beloved ewe. 
And one day, after about nineteen or twenty weeks, 
Caleb, out with his flock, heard shouts at a distance, 
and, turning to look, saw Liddy coming at great speed 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 261 

towards him, shouting out some great news as he ran; 
but what it was Caleb could not make out, even when 
the little fellow had come to him, for his excitement made 
him incoherent. The ewe had lambed, and there were 
twins — two strong healthy lambs, most beautiful to see! 
Nothing so wonderful had ever happened in his life 
before ! And now he sought out his friend oftener than 
ever, to talk of his beloved lambs, and to receive the 
most minute directions about their care. Caleb, who is 
not a laughing man, could not help laughing a little when 
he recalled poor Liddy's enthusiasm. But that beautiful 
shining chapter in the poor boy's life could not last, and 
when the lambs were grown they were sold, and so were 
all the wethers, then Liddy, not being wanted, had to 
find something else to do. 

I was too much interested in this story to let the sub- 
ject drop. What had been Liddy's after-life? Very 
uneventful: there was, in fact, nothing in it, nor in him, 
except an intense love for all things, especially animals; 
and nothing happened to him until the end, for he has 
been dead now these nine or ten years. In his next place 
he was engaged, first, as carter's boy, and then under- 
carter, and all his love was lavished on the horses. They 
were more to him than sheep, and he could love them 
without pain, since they were not being prepared for 
the butcher with his abhorred knife. Liddy's love and 
knowledge of horses became known outside of his own 
little circle, and he was offered and joyfully accepted a 
place in the stables of a wealthy young gentleman farmer, 
who kept a large establishment and was a hunting man. 
From stable-boy he was eventually promoted to groom. 
Occasionally he would reappear in his native place. His 



262 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

home was but a few miles away, and when out exercising 
a horse he appeared to find it a pleasure to trot down 
the old street, where as a farmer's boy he used to make 
the village laugh at his antics. But he was very much 
changeed from the poor boy, who was often hatless and 
barefooted, to the groom in his neat, well-fitting black 
suit, mounted on a showy horse. 

In this place he continued about thirty years, and was 
married and had several children and was very happy, 
and then came a great disaster. His employer having 
met with heavy losses sold all his horses and got rid of 
his servants, and Liddy had to go. This great change, 
and above all his grief at the loss of his beloved horses, 
was more than he could endure. He became melancholy 
and spent his days in silent brooding, and by and by, 
to everybody's surprise, Liddy fell ill, for he was in the 
prime of life and had always been singularly healthy. 
Then to astonish people still more, he died. What ailed 
him — what killed him? every one asked of the doctor; 
and his answer was that he had no disease — that nothing 
ailed him except a broken heart; and that was what 
killed poor Liddy. 

In conclusion I will relate a little incident which oc- 
curred several months later, when I was again on a visit 
to my old friend the shepherd. We were sitting together 
on a Sunday evening, when his old wife looked out and 
said, "Lor, here be Mrs. Taylor with her children coming 
in to see us." And Mrs. Taylor soon appeared, wheeling 
her baby in a perambulator, with two little girls following. 
She was a comely, round, rosy little woman, with black 
hair, black eyes, and a singularly sweet expression, and 
her three pretty little children were like her. She stayed 



DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE 263 

half an hour in pleasant chat, then went her way down 
the road to her home. Who, I asked, was Mrs. Taylor. 
Bawcombe said that in a way she was a native of their 
old village of Winterbourne Bishop: at least her father 
was. She had married a man who had taken a farm 
near them, and after having known her as a young girl 
they had been glad to have her again as a neighbour. 
"She's a daughter of that Liddy I told 'ee about some 
time ago," he said. 



y**-? 




Ml&SELFORE • SOWER CH/U.KE 



CHAPTER XXI 



Some Sheep-Dogs 



Breaking a sheep-dog — The shepherd buys a pup — His 
training — He refuses to work — He chases a swallow 
and is put to death — The shepherd's remorse — Bob, 
the sheep-dog — How he was bitten by an adder — 
Period of the dog's receptivity — Tramp, the sheep- 
dog — Roaming lost about the country — A rage of 
hunger — Sheep-killing dogs — Dogs running wild — 
Anecdotes — A Russian sheep-dog— Caleb parts with 
Tramp 

To Caleb the proper training of a dog was a matter of 
the very first importance. A man, he considered, must 
have not only a fair amount of intelligence, but also 
experience, and an even temper, and a little sympathy 
as well, to sum up the animal in hand — its special apti- 
tudes, its limitations, its disposition, and that something 
in addition, which he called a "kink," and would probably 
have described as its idiosyncrasy if he had known the 
word. There was as much individual difference among 

264 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS 265 

dogs as there is in boys ; but if the breed was right, and 
you went the right way about it, you could hardly fail 
to get a good servant. If a dog was not properly broken, 
if its trainer had not made the most of it, he was not 
a "good shepherd": he lacked the intelligence — "under- 
standing" was his word — or else the knowledge or pa- 
tience or persistence to do his part. It was, however, 
possible for the best shepherd to make mistakes, and one 
of the greatest to be made, which was not uncommon, 
was to embark on the long and laborious business of 
training an animal of mixed blood — a sheep-dog with 
a taint of terrier, retriever, or some other unsuitable 
breed in him. In discussing this subject with other shep- 
herds I generally found that those who were in perfect 
agreement with Caleb on this point were men who were 
somewhat like him in character, and who regarded their 
work with the sheep as so important that it must be done 
thoroughly in every detail and in the best way. One of 
the best shepherds I know, who is 60 years old and has 
been on the same downland sheep-farm all his life, as- 
sures me that he has never had and never would have a 
dog which was trained by another. But the shepherd of 
the ordinary kind says that he doesn't care much about 
the animal's parentage, or that he doesn't trouble to in- 
quire into its pedigree: he breaks the animal, and finds 
that he does pretty well, even when he has some strange 
blood in him; finally, that all dogs have faults and you 
must put up with them. Caleb would say of such a man 
that he was not a "good shepherd." One of his saddest 
memories was of a dog which he bought and broke with- 
out having made the necessary inquiries about its par- 
entage. 



266 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

It happened that a shepherd of the village, who had 
taken a place at a distant farm, was anxious to dispose 
of a litter of pups before leaving, and he asked Caleb 
to have one. Caleb refused. "My dog's old, I know," 
he said, "but I don't want a pup now and I won't have 'n." 

A day or two later the man came back and said he 
had kept one of the best of the five for him — he had 
got rid of all the others. "You can't do better," he per- 
sisted. "No," said Caleb, "what I said I say again. I 
won't have 'n, I've no money to buy a dog." 

"Never mind about money," said the other. "You've 
got a bell I like the sound of ; give he to me and take the 
pup." And so the exchange was made, a copper bell for 
a nice black pup with a white collar; its mother, Baw- 
combe knew, was a good sheep-dog, but about the other 
parent he made no inquiries. 

On receiving the pup he was told that its name was 
Tory, and he did not change it. It was always difficult, 
he explained, to find a name for a dog — a name, that 
is to say, which anyone would say was a proper name 
for a dog and not a foolish name. One could think of a 
good many proper names — Jack and Watch, and so on 
— but in each case one would remember some dog which 
had been called by that name, and it seemed to belong 
to that particular well-remembered dog and to no other, 
and so in the end because of this difficulty he allowed the 
name to remain. 

The dog had not cost him much to buy, but as it was 
only a few weeks old he had to keep it at his own cost 
for fully six months before beginning the business of 
breaking it, which would take from three to six months 
longer. A dog cannot be put to work before he is quite 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS 267 

half a year old unless he is exceptionally vigorous. Sheep 
are timid creatures, but not unintelligent, and they can 
distinguish between the seasoned old sheep-dog, whose 
furious onset and bite they fear, and the raw young re- 
cruit as easily as the rook can distinguish between the 
man with a gun and the man of straw with a broomstick 
under his arm. They will turn upon and attack the 
young dog, and chase him away with his tail between 
his legs. He will also work too furiously for his strength 
and then collapse, with the result that he will make a 
cowardly sheep-dog, or, as the shepherds say, "broken- 
hearted." 

Another thing. He must be made to work at first 
with an old sheep-dog, for though he has the impulse to 
fly about and do something, he does not know what to 
do and does not understand his master's gestures and 
commands. He must have an object-lesson, he must see 
the motion and hear the word and mark how the old 
dog flies to this or that point and what he does. The 
word of command or the gesture thus becomes associated 
in his mind with a particular action on his part. But he 
must not be given too many object-lessons or he will 
lose more than he will gain — a something which might 
almost be described as a sense of individual responsibility. 
That is to say, responsibility to the human master who 
delegates his power to him. Instead of taking his power 
directly from the man he takes it from the dog, and this 
becomes a fixed habit so quickly that many shepherds 
say that if you give more than from three to six lessons 
of this kind to a young dog you will spoil him. He will 
need the mastership of the other dog, and will thereafter 
always be at a loss and work in an uncertain way. 



268 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



A timid or unwilling young dog is often coupled with 
the old dog two or three times, but this method has its 
dangers too, as it may be too much for the young dog's 
strength, and give him that "broken heart" from which 
he will never recover ; he will never be a good sheep-dog. 

To return to Tory. In due time he was trained and 




IN THE FOLD. 

proved quick to learn and willing to work, so that before 
long he began to be useful and was much wanted with 
the sheep, as the old dog was rapidly growing stiffer on 
his legs and harder of hearing. 

One day the lambs were put into a field which was 
half clover and half rape, and it was necessary to keep 
them on the clover. This the young dog could not or 
would not understand; again and again he allowed the 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS 269 

lambs to go to the rape, which so angered Caleb that 
he threw his crook at him. Tory turned and gave him 
a look, then came very quietly and placed himself behind 
his master. From that moment he refused to obey, and 
Bawcombe, after exhausting all his arts of persuasion, 
gave it up and did as well as he could without his assist- 
ance. 

That evening after folding-time he by chance met a 
shepherd he was well acquainted with and told him of 
the trouble he was in over Tory. 

"You tie him up for a week," said the shepherd, "and 
treat him well till he forgets all about it, and he'll be the 
same as he was before you offended him. He's just 
like old Tom — he's got his father's temper." 

"What's that you say?" exclaimed Bawcombe. "Be 
you saying that Tory's old Tom's son? I'd never have 
taken him if I'd known that. Tom's not pure-bred — 
he's got retriever's blood." 

"Well, 'tis known, and I could have told 'ee, if thee'd 
asked me," said the shepherd. "But you do just as I 
tell 'ee, and it'll be all right with the dog." 

Tory was accordingly tied up at home and treated 
well and spoken kindly to and patted on the head, so 
that there would be no unpleasantness between master 
and servant, and if he was an intelligent animal he would 
know that the crook had been thrown not to hurt but 
merely to express disapproval of his naughtiness. 

Then came a busy day for the shepherd, when the 
lambs were trimmed before being taken to the Wilton 
sheep-fair. There was Bawcombe, his boy, the decrepit 
old dog, and Tory to do the work, but when the time 
came to start Tory refused to do anything. 



270 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

When sent to turn the lambs he walked off to a distance 
of about twenty yards, sat down and looked at his master. 
Caleb hoped he would come round presently when he 
saw them all at work, and so they did the best they could 
without him for a time; but the old dog was stiff er and 
harder of hearing than ever, and as they could not get 
on properly Caleb went at intervals to Tory and tried 
to coax him to give them his help; and every time he 
was spoken to he would get up and come to his master, 
then when ordered to do something he would walk off 
to the spot where he had chosen to be and calmly sit 
down once more and look at them. Caleb was becoming 
more and more incensed, but he would not show it to 
the dog ; he still hoped against hope ; and then a curious 
thing happened. A swallow came skimming along close 
to the earth and passed within a yard of Tory, when up 
jumped the dog and gave chase, darting across the field 
with such speed that he kept very near the bird until it 
rose and passed over the hedge at the further side. The 
joyous chase over Tory came back to his old place, and 
sitting on his haunches began watching them again strug- 
gling with the lambs. It was more than the shepherd 
could stand; he went deliberately up to the dog, and 
taking him by the straw collar still on his neck drew 
him quietly away to the hedge-side and bound him to 
a bush, then getting a stout stick he came back and 
gave him one blow on the head. So great was the blow 
that the dog made not the slightest sound: he fell; his 
body quivered a moment and his legs stretched out — he 
was quite dead. Bawcombe then plucked an armful of 
bracken and threw it over his body to cover it, and going 
back to the hurdles sent the boy home, then spreading 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS 271 

his cloak at the hedge-side, laid himself down on it and 
covered his head. 

An hour later the farmer appeared on the scene. 
"What are you doing here, shepherd?" he demanded in 
surprise. "Not trimming the lambs!" 

Bawcombe, raising himself on his elbow, replied that 
he was not trimming the lambs — that he would trim no 
lambs that day. 

"Oh, but we must get on with the trimming!" cried 
the farmer. 

Bawcombe returned that the dog had put him out, and 
now the dog was dead — he had killed him in his anger, 
and he would trim no more lambs that day. He had 
said it and would keep to what he had said. 

Then the farmer got angry and said that the dog had 
a very good nose and would have been useful to him to 
take rabbits. 

"Master," said the other, "I got he when he were a 
pup and broke 'n to help me with the sheep and not to 
catch rabbits; and now I've killed 'n and he'll catch no 
rabbits." 

The farmer knew his man, and swallowing his anger 
walked off without another word. 

Later on in the day he was severely blamed by a shep- 
herd friend who said that he could easily have sold the 
dog to one of the drovers, who were always anxious to 
pick up a dog in their village, and he would have had the 
money to repay him for his trouble ; to which Bawcombe 
returned, "If he wouldn't work for I that broke 'n he 
wouldn't work for another. But I'H never again break 
a dog that isn't pure-bred." 

But though he justified himself he had suffered re- 



272 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

morse for what he had done ; not only at the time, when 
he covered the dead dog up with bracken and refused 
to work any more that day, but the feeling had persisted 
all his life, and he could not relate the incident without 
showing it very plainly. He bitterly blamed himself for 
having taken the pup and for spending long months in 
training him without having first taken pains to inform 
himself that there was no bad blood in him. And al- 
though the dog was perhaps unfit to live he had finally 
killed him in anger. If it had not been for that sudden 
impetuous chase after a swallow he would have borne 
with him and considered afterwards what was to be 
done; but that dash after the bird was more than he 
could stand; for it looked as if Tory had done it pur- 
posely, in something of a mocking spirit, to exhibit his 
wonderful activity and speed to his master, sweating 
there at his task, and make him see what he had lost in 
offending him. 

The shepherd gave another instance of a mistake he 
once made which caused him a good deal of pain. It 
was the case of a dog named Bob which he owned when 
a young man. He was an exceptionally small dog, but 
his quick intelligence made up for lack of strength, and 
he was of a very lively disposition, so that he was 
a good companion to a shepherd as well as a good 
servant. 

One summer day at noon Caleb was going to his flock 
in the fields, walking by a hedge, when he noticed Bob 
sniffing suspiciously at the roots of an old holly-tree 
growing on the bank. It was a low but very old tree 
with a thick trunk, rotten and hollow inside, the cavity 
being hidden with the brushwood growing up from the 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS 273 

roots. As he came abreast of the tree, Bob looked up 
and emitted a low whine, that sound which says so much 
when used by a dog to his master and which his master 
does not always rightly understand. At all events he 
did not do so in this case. It was August and the shoot- 
ing had begun, and Caleb jumped to the conclusion that 
a wounded bird had crept into the hollow tree to hide, 
and so to Bob's whine, which expressed fear and asked 
what he was to do, the shepherd answered, "Get him." 
Bob dashed in, but quickly recoiled, whining in a piteous 
way, and began rubbing his face on his legs. Bawcombe 
in alarm jumped down and peered into the hollow trunk 
and heard a slight rustling of dead leaves, but saw 
nothing. His dog had been bitten by an adder, and he 
at once returned to the village, bitterly blaming himself 
for the mistake he had made and greatly fearing that 
he would lose his dog. Arrived at the village his mother 
at once went off to the down to inform Isaac of the 
trouble and ask him what they were to do. Caleb had 
to wait some time, as none of the villagers who gathered 
round could suggest a remedy, and in the meantime Bob 
continued rubbing his cheek against his foreleg, twitching 
and whining with pain; and before long the face and 
head began to swell on one side, the swelling extending 
to the nape and downwards to the throat. Presently 
Isaac himself, full of concern, arrived on the scene, hav- 
ing left his wife in charge of the flock, and at the same 
time a man from a neighbouring village came riding by 
and joined the group. The horseman got off and assisted 
Caleb in holding the dog while Isaac made a number of 
incisions with his knife in the swollen place and let out 
some blood, after which they rubbed the wounds and all 



274 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

the swollen part with an oil used for the purpose. The 
composition of this oil was a secret: it was made by a 
man in one of the downland villages and sold at eighteen- 
pence a small bottle; Isaac was a believer in its efficacy, 
and always kept a bottle hidden away somewhere in his 
cottage. 

Bob recovered in a few days, but the hair fell out from 
all the part which had been swollen, and he was a curious- 
looking dog with half his face and head naked until he 
got his fresh coat, when it grew again. He was as good 
and active a dog as ever, and lived to a good old age, 
but one result of the poison he never got over: his bark 
had changed from a sharp ringing sound to a low and 
hoarse one. "He always barked," said the shepherd, 
"like a dog with a sore throat." 

To go back to the subject of training a dog. Once 
you make a beginning it must be carried through to a 
finish. You take him at the age of 6 months and the 
education must be fairly complete when he is a year old. 
He is then lively, impressionable, exceedingly adaptive; 
his intelligence at that period is most like man's; but it 
would be a mistake to think that it will continue so — 
that to what he learns now in this wonderful half-year, 
other things may be added by and by as opportunity 
arises. At a year he has practically got to the end of 
his capacity to learn. He has lost his human-like recep- 
tivity, but what he has been taught will remain with him 
for the rest of his life. We can hardly say that he re- 
members it ; it is more like what is called "inherited mem- 
ory" or "lapsed intelligence." 

All this is very important to a shepherd, and explains 
the reason an old head-shepherd had for saying to me 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS 275 

that he had never had and never would have a dog he 
had not trained himself. No two men follow precisely 
the same method in training, and a dog transferred from 
his trainer to another man is always a little at a loss; 
method, voice, gestures, personality, are all different; 
his new master must study him and in a way adapt him- 
self to the dog. The dog is still more at a loss when 
transferred from one kind of country to another where 
the sheep are worked in a different manner, and one 
instance Caleb gave me of this is worth relating. It 
was, I thought, one of his best dog stories. 

His dogs as a rule were bought as pups; occasionally 
he had had to get a dog already trained, a painful neces- 
sity to a shepherd, seeing that the pound or two it costs 
— the price of an ordinary animal — is a big sum of 
money to him. And once in his life he got an old trained 
sheep-dog for nothing. He was young then, and acting 
as under-shepherd in his native village, when the report 
came one day that a great circus and menagerie which 
had been exhibiting in the west was on its way to Salis- 
bury, and would be coming past the village about six 
o'clock on the following morning. The turnpike was 
a little over a mile away, and thither Caleb went with 
half a dozen other young men of the village at about 
five o'clock to see the show pass, and sat on a gate beside 
a wood to wait its coming. In due time the long proces- 
sion of horses and mounted men and women, and gor- 
geous vans containing lions and tigers and other strange 
beasts, came by, affording them great admiration and 
delight. When it had gone on and the last van had 
disappeared at the turning of the road, they got down 
from the gate and were about to set out on their way 



276 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

back when a big, shaggy sheep-dog came out of the 
wood and running to the road began looking up and 
down in a bewildered way. They had no doubt that 
he belonged to the circus and had turned aside to hunt 
a rabbit in the wood; then, thinking the animal would 
understand them, they shouted to it and waved their 
arms in the direction the procession had gone. But the 
dog became frightened, and turning fled back into cover, 
and they saw no more of it. 

Two or three days later it was rumoured that a strange 
dog had been seen in the neighbourhood of Winterbourne 
Bishop, in the fields; and women and children going to 
or coming from outlying cottages and farms had encoun- 
tered it, sometimes appearing suddenly out of the furze- 
bushes and staring wildly at them; or they would meet 
him in some deep lane between hedges, and after standing 
still a moment eyeing them he would turn and fly in 
terror from their strange faces. Shepherds began to 
be alarmed for the safety of their sheep, and there was 
a good deal of excitement and talk about the strange 
dog. Two or three days later Caleb encountered it. He 
was returning from his flock at the side of a large grass 
field where four or five women were occupied cutting the 
thistles, and the dog, which he immediately recognized 
as the one he had seen at the turnpike, was following 
one of the women about. She was greatly alarmed and 
called to him, "Come here, Caleb, for goodness' sake, 
and drive this big dog away! He do look so desprit, 
I'm afeared of he." 

"Don't you be feared," he shouted back. "He won't 
hurt 'ee; he's starving — don't you see his bones sticking 
out? He's asking to be fed." Then going a little nearer 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS 277 

he called to her to take hold of the dog by the neck and 
keep him while he approached. He feared that the dog 
on seeing him coming would rush away. After a little 
while she called the dog, but when he went to her she 
shrank away from him and called out, "No, I daren't 
touch he — he'll tear my hand off. I never see'd such a 
desprit-looking beast !" 

' Tis hunger," repeated Caleb, and then very slowly 
and cautiously he approached, the dog all the time eyeing 
him suspiciously, ready to rush away on the slightest 
alarm. And while approaching him he began to speak 
gently to him, then coming to a stand stooped and patting 
his legs called the dog to him. Presently he came, sinking 
his body lower as he advanced and at last crawling, and 
when he arrived at the shepherd's feet he turned himself 
over on his back — that eloquent action which a dog uses 
when humbling himself before and imploring mercy from 
one mightier than himself, man or dog. 

Caleb stooped, and after patting the dog gripped him 
firmly by the neck and pulled him up, while with his 
free hand he undid his leather belt to turn it into a dog's 
collar and leash; then, the end of the strap in his hand, 
he said "Come," and started home with the dog at his 
side. Arrived at the cottage he got a bucket and mixed 
as much meal as would make two good feeds, the dog 
all the time watching him with his muscles twitching and 
the water running from his mouth. The meal well mixed 
he emptied it out on the turf, and what followed, he said, 
was an amazing thing to see: the dog hurled himself 
down on the food and started devouring it as if the mass 
of meal had been some living savage creature he had 
captured and was f renziedly tearing to pieces. He turned 



278 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

round and round, floundering on the earth, uttering 
strange noises like half-choking growls and screams while 
gobbling down the meal; then when he had devoured it 
all he began tearing up and swallowing the turf for the 
sake of the little wet meal still adhering to it. 

Such rage of hunger Caleb had never seen, and it was 
painful to him to think of what the dog had endured 
during those days when it had been roaming foodless 
about the neighbourhood. Yet it was among sheep all 
the time — scores of flocks left folded by night at a dis- 
tance from the village; one would have imagined that 
the old wolf and wild-dog instinct would have come to 
life in such circumstances, but the instinct was to all 
appearance dead. 

My belief is that the pure-bred sheep-dog is indeed the 
last dog to revert to a state of nature; and that when 
sheep-killing by night is traced to a sheep-dog, the animal 
has a bad strain in him, of retriever, or cur, or "rabbit- 
dog," as the shepherds call all terriers. When I was a 
boy on the pampas sheep - killing dogs were common 
enough, and they were always curs, or the common dog 
of the country, a smooth-haired animal about the size 
of a coach-dog, red, or black, or white. I recall one 
instance of sheep-killing being traced to our own dogs 
— we had about six or eight just then. A native neigh- 
bour, a few miles away, caught them at it one morning ; 
they escaped him in spite of his good horse, with lasso 
and bolas also, but his sharp eyes saw them pretty well 
in the dim light, and by and by he identified them, and 
my father had to pay him for about thirty slain and 
badly injured sheep; after which a gallows was erected 
and our guardians ignominiously hanged. Here we shoot 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS , 279 

dogs; in some countries the old custom of hanging them, 
which is perhaps less painful, is still followed. 

It was common, too, in those days on the pampas, 
especially in the outlying districts, for dogs to take to 
a wholly wild life. I remember once, when staying with 
a native friend among the Sierras, near Cape Corrientos, 
that he owned a fine handsome dog, so good-tempered 
and intelligent that I was very much attached to him. 
He was, my friend said, a wild dog; he had found a 
bitch with a litter of pups in a huge burrow she had 
made for herself in the ground, and he had killed them 
all except this one, which he took home and reared as 
an experiment. 

In England it is perhaps now impossible for a dog 
to run wholly wild, or to exist in that state for any length 
of time. I find one case reported in the "Salisbury Jour- 
nal" of 31 May, 1779. It interested me very much 
because I had long been familiar with the place in which 
the escaped dog was found. This was in Pamba Wood, 
near Silchester, and is sometimes called Silchester Forest 
—the "Proud Pamba" of Drayton's "Polyolbion." 

A poor woman while gathering sticks in the wood 
came upon the remains of a dead man — the skull and a 
number of bones. She gave notice of it, and a crowd of 
villagers went to the spot, and found there a foxhound 
bitch which had been missing from the kennels for about 
two months. She had a litter of eight pups about two 
months old in a pit about six feet deep which she had 
made herself, and it was plain that the dogs had de- 
voured the flesh of the man after he had met his death 
close to the pit. Nothing except the flesh on his feet 
and ankles remained uneaten: they were cased in thick 



280 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

high boots, so hard that the dogs had been unable to 
tear them to pieces. The dead man was identified or 
taken to be a thrasher from the neighbouring village of 
Aldermaston who had been missing about a fortnight, 
and it was supposed that he had gone into the wood to 
cut a flail and had been seized with sudden illness and 
died at that spot. 

The pups were very wild and savage, and I should 
rather think that the man had found the bitch with her 
young and had attempted to take them single-handed 
for the sake of the reward, and had been attacked, pulled 
down, and killed, after which they began to feed on 
the body. One wonders how this dog had managed to 
support herself and her eight pups in the forest during 
the six weeks before the poor thrasher came in their 
way to provide them with food. 

In this same journal I find a case of a dog devouring 
its own master. The man was a rat-catcher living in 
a cottage at Fovant, a small village in the valley of the 
Nadder. Going home drunk one night from the public- 
house he fell in the road, and remained lying there in 
a drunken sleep, and towards morning a wagon passed 
over him, the wheel crushing his head. The wagoner 
reported the case, and the constable with men to help 
him went and removed the body to the man's cottage, 
and after depositing it on the floor of the kitchen or 
living room went their way, closing the door after them. 
Later in the day they returned, and going in found the 
dog devouring the man's flesh. 

We experience an intense disgust at a case like this; 
but we have the same feeling when we hear of man 
eating dog ; in both cases, owing to the long and intimate 



SOME SHEEP-DOGS 281 

association between man and dog, we are affected as 
by a kind of cannibalism. 

To go back to our story. From that time the stray 
dog was Caleb's obedient and affectionate slave, always 
watching his face and every gesture, and starting up at 
his slightest word in readiness to do his bidding. When 
put with the flock he turned out to be a useful sheep- 
dog, but unfortunately he had not been trained on the 
Wiltshire Downs. It was plain to see that the work 
was strange to him, that he had been taught in a different 
school, and could never forget the old and acquire a new 
method. But as to what conditions he had been reared 
in or in what district or country no one could guess. 
Every one said that he was a sheep-dog, but unlike any 
sheep-dog they had ever seen ; he was not Wiltshire, nor 
Welsh, nor Sussex, nor Scotch, and they could say no 
more. Whenever a shepherd saw him for the first time 
his attention was immediately attracted, and he would 
stop to speak with Caleb. "What sort of a dog do you 
call that?" he would say. "I never see'd one just like 
'n before." 

At length one day when passing by a new building 
which some workmen had been brought from a distance 
to erect in the village, one of the men hailed Caleb and 
said, "Where did you get that dog, mate?" 

"Why do you ask me that?" said the shepherd. 

"Because I know where he come from : he's a Rooshian, 
that's what he is. I've see'd many just like him in the 
Crimea when I was there. But I never see'd one before 
in England." 

Caleb was quite ready to believe it, and was a little 
proud at having a sheep-dog from that distant country. 



282 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

He said that it also put something new into his mind. 
He didn't know nothing about Russia before that, though 
he had been hearing so much of our great war there 
and of all the people that had been killed. Now he 
realized that Russia was a great country, a land where 
there were hills and valleys and villages, where there were 
flocks and herds, and shepherds and sheep-dogs just as 
in the Wiltshire Downs. He only wished that Tramp 
— that was the name he had given his dog — could have 
told him his history. 

Tramp, in spite of being strange to the downs and the 
downland sheep-dog's work, would probably have been 
kept by Caleb to the end but for his ineradicable passion 
for hunting rabbits. He did not neglect his duty, but 
he would slip away too often, and eventually when a 
man who wanted a good dog for rabbits one day offered 
Caleb fifteen shillings for Tramp he sold him, and as he 
was taken away to a distance by his new master, he never 
saw him again. 



t 




SHEEWTON 



CHAPTER XXII 
The Shepherd as Naturalist 

'General remarks — Great Ridge Wood — Encounter with 
a roe-deer — A hare on a stump — A gamekeeper's 
memory — Talk with a gipsy — A strange story of a 
hedgehog — A gipsy on memory — The shepherd's 
feeling for animals — Anecdote of a shrew — Anecdote 
of an owl — Reflex effect of the gamekeeper's calling 
— We remember best what we see emotionally 

It will appear to some of my readers that the interesting 
facts about wild life, or rather about animal life, wild 
and domestic, gathered in my talks with the old shepherd, 
do not amount to much. If this is all there is to show 
after a long life spent out of doors, or all that is best 
worth preserving, it is a somewhat scanty harvest, they 
will say. To me it appears a somewhat abundant one. 
We field naturalists, who set down what we see and hear 
in a notebook lest we forget it, do not always bear in 
mind that it is exceedingly rare for those who are not 
naturalists, whose senses and minds are occupied with 

283 



284 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

other things, to come upon a new and interesting fact 
in animal life, or that these chance observations are 
quickly forgotten. This was strongly borne in upon 
me lately while staying in the village of Hindon in the 
neighbourhood of the Great Ridge Wood, which clothes 
the summit of the long high down overlooking the vale 
of the Wylye. It is an immense wood, mostly of scrub 
or dwarf oak, very dense in some parts, in others thin, 
with open, barren patches, and like a wild forest, cover- 
ing altogether twelve or fourteen square miles — perhaps 
more. There are no houses near, and no people in it 
except a few gamekeepers : I spent long days in it without 
meeting a human being. It was a joy to me to find such 
a spot in England, so wild and solitary, and I was filled 
with pleasing anticipation of all the wild life I should 
see in such a place, especially after an experience I had 
on my second day in it. I was standing in an open glade 
when a cock-pheasant uttered a cry of alarm, and imme- 
diately afterwards, startled by the cry perhaps, a roe- 
deer rushed out of the close thicket of oak and holly in 
which it had been hiding, and ran past me at a very short 
distance, giving me a good sight of this shyest of the 
large wild animals still left to us. He looked very beau- 
tiful to me, in that mouse-coloured coat which makes him 
invisible in the deep shade in which he is accustomed 
to pass the daylight hours in hiding, as he fled across 
the green open space in the brilliant May sunshine. But 
he was only one, a chance visitor, a wanderer from wood 
to wood about the land; and he had been seen once, a 
month before my encounter with him, and ever since 
then the keepers had been watching and waiting for him, 
gun in hand, to send a charge of shot into his side. 



THE SHEPHERD AS NATURALIST 285 

That was the best and the only great thing I saw in 
the Great Ridge Wood, for the curse of the pheasant 
is on it as on all the woods and forests in Wiltshire, and 
all wild life considered injurious to the semi-domestic 
bird, from the sparrowhawk to the harrier and buzzard 
and goshawk, and from the little mousing weasel to the 
badger; and all the wild life that is only beautiful, or 
which delights us because of its wildness, from the squir- 
rel to the roe-deer, must be included in the slaughter. 

One very long summer day spent in roaming about in 
this endless wood, always on the watch, had for sole 
result, so far as anything out of the common goes, the 
spectacle of a hare sitting on a stump. The hare started 
up at a distance of over a hundred yards before me and 
rushed straight away at first, then turned and ran on 
my left so as to get round to the side from which I had 
come. I stood still and watched him as he moved swiftly 
over the ground, seeing him not as a hare but as a dim 
brown object successively appearing, vanishing, and re- 
appearing, behind and between the brown tree-trunks, 
until he had traced half a circle and was then suddenly 
lost to sight. Thinking that he had come to a stand I put 
my binocular on the spot where he had vanished, and 
saw him sitting on an old oak stump about thirty inches 
high. It was a round mossy stump about eighteen inches 
in diameter, standing in a bed of brown dead leaves, with 
the rough brown trunks of other dwarf oak-trees on 
either side of it. The animal was sitting motionless, in 
profile, its ears erect, seeing me with one eye, and was 
like a carved figure of a hare set on a pedestal, and had 
a very striking appearance. 

As I had never seen such a thing before I thought if 



286 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



was worth mentioning to a keeper I called to see at his 
lodge on my way back in the evening. It had been a 
blank day, I told him — a hare sitting on a stump being 
the only thing I could remember to tell him. "Well," 
he said, "you've seen something I've never seen in all 
the years I've been in these woods. And yet, when you 
come to think of it, it's just what one might expect a 




DW.4RT" OAKS U* -OTC GREAT RITM3E WOOD 



hare would do. The wood is full of old stumps, and it 
seems only natural a hare should jump on to one to 
get a better view of a man or animal at a distance among 
the trees. But I never saw it." 

What, then, had he seen worth remembering during 
his long hours in the wood on that day, or the day before, 
or on any day during the last thirty years since he had 
been policing that wood, I asked him. He answered 
that he had seen many strange things, but he was not 



THE SHEPHERD AS NATURALIST 287 

now able to remember one to tell me ! He said, further, 
that the only things he remembered were those that re- 
lated to his business of guarding and rearing the birds; 
all other things he observed in animals, however remark- 
able they might seem to him at the moment, were things 
that didn't matter and were quickly forgotten. 

On the very next day I was out on the down with a 
gipsy, and we got talking about wild animals. He was 
a middle-aged man and a very perfect specimen of his 
race — not one of the blue-eyed and red or light-haired 
bastard gipsies, but dark as a Red Indian, with eyes like 
a hawk, and altogether a hawk-like being, lean, wiry, 
alert, a perfectly wild man in a tame, civilized land. The 
lean, mouse-coloured lurcher that followed at his heels 
was perfect, too, in his way — man and dog appeared 
made for one another. When this man spoke of his life, 
spent in roaming about the country, of his very perfect 
health, and of his hatred of houses, the very atmosphere 
of any indoor place producing a suffocating and sicken- 
ing effect on him, I envied him as I envy birds their 
wings, and as I can never envy men who live in mansions. 
His was the wild, the real life, and it seemed to me that 
there was no other worth living. 

"You know," said he, in the course of our talk about 
wild animals, "we are very fond of hedgehogs — we like 
them better than rabbits." 

"Well, so do I," was my remark. I am not quite sure 
that I do, but that is what I told him. "But now you 
talk of hedgehogs," I said, "it's funny to think that, 
common as the animal is, it has some queer habits I 
can't find anything about from gamekeepers and others 
I've talked to on the subject, or from my own observa- 



288 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

tion. Yet one would imagine that we know all there is 
to be known about the little beast; you'll find his history 
in a hundred books — perhaps in five hundred. There's 
one book about our British animals so big you'd hardly 
be able to lift its three volumes from the ground with 
all your strength, in which its author has raked together 
everything known about the hedgehog, but he doesn't 
give me the information I want — just what I went to 
the book to find. Now here's what a friend of mine 
once saw. He's not a naturalist, nor a sportsman, nor 
a gamekeeper, and not a gipsy; he doesn't observe ani- 
mals or want to find out their ways ; he is a writer, occu- 
pied day and night with his writing, sitting among books, 
yet he saw something which the naturalists and game- 
keepers haven't seen, so far as I know. He was going 
home one moonlight night by a footpath through the 
woods when he heard a very strange noise a little dis- 
tance ahead, a low whistling sound, very sharp, like the 
continuous twittering of a little bird with a voice like 
a bat, or a shrew, only softer, more musical. He went 
on very cautiously until he spied two hedgehogs standing 
on the path facing each other, with their noses almost or 
quite touching. He remained watching and listening to 
them for some moments, then tried to go a little nearer 
and they ran away. 

"Now I've asked about a dozen gamekeepers if they 
ever saw such a thing, and all said they hadn't; they 
never heard hedgehogs make that twittering sound, like 
a bird or a singing mouse; they had only heard them 
scream like a rabbit when in a trap. Now what do you 
say about it?" 

"I've never seen anything like that," said the gipsy. 



THE SHEPHERD AS NATURALIST 289 

"I only know the hedgehog makes a little whistling sound 
when he first comes out at night ; I believe it is a sort of 
call they have." 

"But no doubt," I said, "you've seen other queer things 
in hedgehogs and in other little animals which I should 
like to hear." 

Yes, he had, first and last, seen a good many queer 
things both by day and night, in woods and other places, 
he replied, and then continued: "But you see it's like 
this. We see something and say 'Now that's a curious 
thing !' and then we forget all about it. You see, we don't 
lay no store by such things; we ain't scolards and don't 
know nothing about what's said in books. We see 
something and say That's something we never saw before 
and never heard tell of, but maybe others have seen it 
and you can find it in the books. So that's how 'tis, 
but if I hadn't forgotten them I could have told you a 
lot of queer things." 

That was all he could say, and few can say more. 
Caleb was one of the few who could, and one wonders 
why it was so, seeing that he was occupied with his own 
tasks in the fields and on the down where wild life is 
least abundant and varied, and that his opportunities 
were so few compared with those of the gamekeeper. 
It was, I take it, because he had sympathy for the crea- 
tures he observed, that their actions had stamped them- 
selves on his memory, because he had seen them emo- 
tionally. We have seen how well he remembered the 
many sheep-dogs he had owned, how vividly their various 
characters are portrayed in his account of them. I have 
met with shepherds who had little to tell about the dogs 
they had possessed; they had regarded their dogs as 



290 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

useful servants and nothing more as long as they lived, 
and when dead they were forgotten. But Caleb had a 
feeling for his dogs which made it impossible for him 
to forget them or to recall them without that tenderness 
which accompanies the thought of vanished human 
friends. In a lesser degree he had something of this 
feeling for all animals, down even to the most minute 
and unconsidered. I recall here one of his anecdotes of 
a very small creature — a shrew, or over-runner, as he 
called it. 

One day when out with his flock a sudden storm of 
rain caused him to seek for shelter in an old untrimmed 
hedge close by. He crept into the ditch, full of old dead 
leaves beneath the tangle of thorns and brambles, and 
setting his back against the bank he thrust his legs out, 
and as he did so was startled by an outburst of shrill 
little screams at his feet. Looking down he spied a 
shrew standing on the dead leaves close to his boot, 
screaming with all its might, its long thin snout pointed 
upwards and its mouth wide open; and just above it, 
two or three inches perhaps, hovered a small brown 
butterfly. There for a few moments it continued hover- 
ing while the shrew continued screaming ; then the butter- 
fly flitted away and the shrew disappeared among the 
dead leaves. 

Caleb laughed (a rare thing with him) when he nar- 
rated this little incident, then remarked: "The over- 
runner was a-crying 'cause he couldn't catch that leetel 
butterfly." 

The shepherd's inference was wrong; he did not know 
— few do — that the shrew has the singular habit, when 
surprised on the surface and in danger, of remaining 



THE SHEPHERD AS NATURALIST 291 

motionless and uttering shrill cries. His foot, set down 
close to it, had set it screaming; the small butterfly, no 
doubt disturbed at the same moment, was there by chance. 
I recall here another little story he related of a bird — a 
long-eared owl. 

One summer there was a great drought, and the rooks, 
unable to get their usual food from the hard, sun-baked 
pasture-lands, attacked the roots and would have pretty 
well destroyed them if the farmer had not protected his 
swedes by driving in stakes and running lines of cotton- 
thread and twine from stake to stake all over the field. 
This kept them off, just as thread keeps the chaffinches 
from the seed-beds in small gardens, and as it keeps the 
sparrows from the crocuses on lawns and ornamental 
grounds. One day Caleb caught sight of an odd-looking, 
brownish-grey object out in the middle of the turnip- 
field, and as he looked it rose up two or three feet into 
the air, then dropped back again, and this curious move- 
ment was repeated at intervals of two or three minutes 
until he went to see what the thing was. It turned out 
to be a long-eared owl, with its foot accidentally caught 
by a slack thread, which allowed the bird to rise a couple 
of feet into the air; but every such attempt to escape 
ended in its being pulled back to the ground again. It 
was so excessively lean, so weightless in his hand, when 
he took it up after disengaging its foot, that he thought 
it must have been captive for the space of two or three 
days. The wonder was that it had kept alive during 
those long midsummer days of intolerable heat out there 
in the middle of the burning field: Yet it was in very 
fine feather and beautiful to look at with its long, black 
ear-tufts and round, orange-yellow eyes, which would 



292 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

never lose their fiery lustre until glazed in death. Caleb's 
first thought on seeing it closely was that it would have 
been a prize to anyone who liked to have a handsome 
bird stuffed in a glass case. Then raising it over his 
head he allowed it to fly, whereupon it flew off a dis- 
tance of a dozen or fifteen yards and pitched among the 
turnips, after which it ran a little space and rose again 
with labour, but soon recovering strength it flew away 
over the field and finally disappeared in the deep shade 
of the copse beyond. 

In relating these things the voice, the manner, the 
expression in his eyes, were more than the mere words, 
and displayed the feeling which had caused these little 
incidents to endure so long in his memory. 

The gamekeeper cannot have this feeling: he may 
come to his task with the liveliest interest in, even with 
sympathy for, the wild creatures amidst which he will 
spend his life, but it is all soon lost. His business in the 
woods is to kill, and the reflex effect is to extinguish 
all interest in the living animal — in its life and mind. 
It would, indeed, be a wonderful thing if he could remem- 
ber any singular action or appearance of an animal which 
he had witnessed before bringing his gun automatically 
to his shoulder. 




• CH11MABK* 









CHAPTER XXIII 
The Master of the Village 

Moral effect of the great man — An orphaned village — 
The masters of the village — Elijah Raven — Strange 
appearance and character — Elijah's house — The owls 
— Two rooms in the house — Elijah hardens with 
time — The village club and its arbitrary secretary — 
Caleb dips the lambs and falls ill — His claim on the 
club rejected — Elijah in court 

In my roamings about the downs it is always a relief — 
a positive pleasure in fact — to find myself in a village 
which has no squire or other magnificent and munificent 
person who dominates everybody and everything, and, 
if he chooses to do so, plays providence in the community. 
I may have no personal objection to him — he is sometimes 
almost if not quite human ; what I heartily dislike is the 
effect of his position (that of a giant among pigmies) 

293 



294 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

on the lowly minds about him, and the servility, hypoc- 
risy, and parasitism which spring up and flourish in his 
wide shadow whether he likes these moral weeds or 
not. As a rule he likes them, since the poor devil has 
this in common with the rest of us, that he likes to stand 
high in the general regard. But how is he to know it 
unless he witnesses its outward beautiful signs every 
day and every hour on every countenance he looks upon ? 
Better, to my mind, the severer conditions, the poverty 
and unmerited sufferings which cannot be relieved, with 
the greater manliness and self - dependence when the 
people are left to work out their own destiny. On this 
account I was pleased to make the discovery on my first 
visit to Caleb's native village that there was no magnate, 
or other big man, and no gentleman except the parson, 
who was not a rich man. It was, so to speak, one of 
the orphaned villages left to fend for itself and fight its 
own way in a hard world, and had nobody even to give 
the customary blankets and sack of coals to its old 
women. Nor was there any very big farmer in the place, 
certainly no gentleman farmer; they were mostly small 
men, some of them hardly to be distinguished in speech 
and appearance from their hired labourers. 

In these small isolated communities it is common to 
find men who have succeeded in rising above the others 
and in establishing a sort of mastery over them. They 
set a man a little apart, a little higher than the others, 
who are never able to better themselves ; the main differ- 
ence is that they are harder and more grasping and have 
more self-control. These qualities tell eventually, and 
set a man a little apart, a little higher than the others, 
and he gets the taste of power, which reacts on him like 



THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE 295 

the first taste of blood on the big cat. Henceforward 
he has his ideal, his definite goal, which is to get the 
upper hand — to be on top. He may be, and generally 
is, an exceedingly unpleasant fellow to have for a neigh- 
bour — mean, sordid, greedy, tyrannous, even cruel, and 
he may be generally hated and despised as well, but along 
with these feelings there will be a kind of shamefaced 
respect and admiration for his courage in following his 
own line in defiance of what others think and feel. It is 
after all with man as with the social animals: he must 
have a master — not a policeman, or magistrate, or a 
vague, far-away, impersonal something called the authori- 
ties or the government; but a head of the pack or herd, 
a being like himself whom he knows and sees and hears 
and feels every day. A real man, dressed in old familiar 
clothes, a fellow-villager, who, wolf or dog like, has 
fought his way to the mastership. 

There was a person of this kind at Winterbourne 
Bishop who was often mentioned in Caleb's reminis- 
cences, for he had left a very strong impression on the 
shepherd's mind — as strong, perhaps, though in a dis- 
agreeable way, as that of Isaac his father, and of Mr. 
Ellerby of Doveton. For not only was he a man of great 
force of character, but he was of eccentric habits and 
of a somewhat grotesque appearance. 

The curious name of this person was Elijah Raven. 
He was a native of the village and lived till extreme old 
age in it, the last of his family, in a small house inherited 
from his father, situated about the center of the village 
street. It was a quaint, old, timbered house, little bigger 
than a cottage, with a thatched roof, and behind it some 
outbuildings, a small orchard, and a field of a dozen or 



296 W SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

fifteen acres. Here he lived with one other person, an 
old man who did the cooking and housework, but after 
this man died he lived alone. Not only was he a bachelor, 
but he would never allow any woman to come inside 
his house. Elijah's one idea was to get the advantage 
of others — to make himself master in the village. Begin- 
ning poor, he worked in a small, cautious, peddling way 
at farming, taking a field or meadow or strip of down 
here and there in the neighbourhood, keeping a few sheep, 
a few cows, buying and selling and breeding horses. 
The men he employed were those he could get at low 
wages — poor labourers who were without a place and 
wanted to fill up a vacant time, or men like the Targetts 
described in a former chapter who could be imposed 
upon ; also gipsies who flitted about the country, working 
in a spasmodic way when in the mood for the farmers 
who could tolerate them, and who were paid about half 
the wages of an ordinary labourer. If a poor man had 
to find money quickly, on account of illness or some 
other cause, he could get it from Elijah at once — not 
borrowed, since Elijah neither lent nor gave — but he 
could sell him anything he possessed — a horse or cow, 
or sheep-dog, or a piece of furniture; and if he had 
nothing to sell, Elijah would give him something to do 
and pay him something for it. The great thing was 
that Elijah had money which he was always willing to 
circulate. At his unlamented death he left several thou- 
sands of pounds, which went to a distant relation, and 
a name which does not smell sweet but is still remem- 
bered not only at Winterbourne Bishop but at many 
other villages on Salisbury Plain. 

Elijah was short of stature, broad shouldered, with 



THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE 297 

an abnormally big head and large dark eyes. They say 
that he never cut his hair in his life. It was abundant 
and curly, and grew to his shoulders, and when he was 
old and his great mass of hair and beard became white 
it was said that he resembled a gigantic white owl. 
Mothers frightened their children into quiet by saying, 
"Elijah will get you if you don't behave yourself." He 
knew and resented this, and though he never noticed a 
child he hated to have the little ones staring in a half- 
terrified way at him. To seclude himself more from the 
villagers he planted holly and yew bushes before his 
house, and eventually the entire building was hidden 
from sight by the dense evergreen thicket. The trees 
were cut down after his death: they were gone when I 
first visited the village and by chance found a lodging 
in the house, and congratulated myself that I had got 
the quaintest, old rambling rooms I had ever inhabited. 
I did not know that I was in Elijah Raven's house, al- 
though his name had long been familiar to me: it only 
came out one day when I asked my landlady, who was 
a native, to tell me the history of the place. She remem- 
bered how as a little girl, full of mischief and greatly 
daring, she had sometimes climbed over the low front 
wall to hide under the thick yew bushes and watch to 
catch a sight of the owlish old man at his door or window. 
For many years Elijah had two feathered tenants, a 
pair of white owls — the birds he so much resembled. 
They occupied a small garret at the end of his bedroom, 
having access to it through a hole under the thatch. They 
bred there in peace, and on summer evenings one of the 
common sights of the village was Elijah's owls flying 
from the house behind the evergreens and returning to 



298 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

it with mice in their talons. At such seasons the threat 
to the unruly children would be varied to "Old Elijah's 
owls will get you." Naturally, the children grew up with 
the idea of the bird and the owlish old man associated 
in their minds. 

It was odd that the two very rooms which Elijah had 
occupied during all those solitary years, the others being 
given over to spiders and dust, should have been assigned 
to me when I came to lodge in the house. The first, my 
sitting-room, was so low that my hair touched the ceiling 
when I stood up my full height ; it had a brick floor and 
a wide old fireplace on one side. Though so low-ceilinged 
it was very large and good to be in when I returned from 
a long ramble on the downs, sometimes wet and cold, 
to sit by a wood fire and warm myself. At night when 
I climbed to my bedroom by means of the narrow, 
crooked, worm-eaten staircase, with two difficult and 
dangerous corners to get round, I would lie awake staring 
at the small square patch of greyness in the black interior 
made by the latticed window; and listening to the wind 
and rain outside, would remember that the sordid, owlish 
old man had slept there and stared nightly at that same 
grey patch in the dark for very many years. If, I 
thought, that something of a man which remains here 
below to haunt the scene of its past life is more likely 
to exist and appear to mortal eyes in the case of a person 
of strong individuality, then there is a chance that I may 
be visited this night by Elijah Raven his ghost. But 
his owlish countenance never appeared between me and 
that patch of pale dim light ; nor did I ever feel a breath 
of cold unearthly air on me. 

Elijah did not improve with time ; the years that made 



THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE 299 

him long-haired, whiter, and more owl-like also made 
him more penurious and grasping, and anxious to get 
the better of every person about him. There was scarcely 
a poor person in the village — not a field labourer nor 
shepherd nor farmer's boy, nor any old woman he had 
employed, who did not consider that they had suffered 
at his hands. The very poorest could not escape; if he 
got some one to work for fourpence a day he would find 
a reason to keep back a portion of the small sum due to 
him. At the same time he wanted to be well thought of, 
and at length an opportunity came to him to figure as 
one who did not live wholly for himself but rather as 
a person ready to go out of his way to help his neigh- 
bours. 

There had long existed a small benefit society or club 
in the village to which most of the farm-hands in the 
parish belonged, the members numbering about sixty or 
seventy. Subscriptions were paid quarterly, but the rules 
were not strict, and any member could take a week or a 
fortnight longer to pay; when a member fell ill he re- 
ceived half the amount of his wages a week from the 
funds in hand, and once a year they had a dinner. The 
secretary was a labourer, and in time he grew old and 
infirm and could not hold a pen in his rheumaticky fingers, 
and a meeting was held to consider what was to be done 
in the matter. It was not an easy one to settle. There 
were few members capable of keeping the books who 
would undertake the duty, as it was unpaid, and no one 
among them well known and trusted by all the members. 
It was then that Elijah Raven came to the rescue. He 
attended the meeting, which he was allowed to do owing 
to his being a person of importance — the only one of 



300 'A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

that description in the village ; and getting up on his legs 
he made the offer to act as secretary himself. This came 
as a great surprise, and the offer was at once and unani- 
mously accepted, all unpleasant feelings being forgotten, 
and for the first time in his life Elijah heard himself 
praised as a disinterested person, one it was good to have 
in the village. 

Things went on very well for a time, and at the yearly 
dinner of the club a few months later, Elijah gave an 
account of his stewardship, showing that the club had 
a surplus of two hundred pounds. Shortly after this 
trouble began; Elijah, it was said, was making use of 
his position as secretary for his own private interests 
and to pay off old scores against those he disliked. When 
a man came with his quarterly subscription Elijah would 
perhaps remember that this person had refused to work 
for him or that he had some quarrel with him, and if 
the subscription was overdue he would refuse to take it; 
he would tell the man that he was no longer a member, 
and he also refused to give sick pay to any applicant 
whose last subscription was still due, if he happened to 
be in Elijah's black book. By and by he came into col- 
lision with Caleb, one of the villagers against whom he 
cherished a special grudge, and this small affair resulted 
in the dissolution of the club. 

At this time Caleb was head-shepherd at Bartle's Cross, 
a large farm above a mile and a half from the village. 
One excessively hot day in August he had to dip the 
lambs; it was very hard work to drive them from the 
farm over a high down to the stream a mile below the 
village, where there was a dipping place, and he was 
tired and hot, and in a sweat when he began his work. 



THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE 301 

With his arms bared to the shoulders he took and plunged 
his first lamb into the tank. When engaged in dipping, 
he said, he always kept his mouth closed tightly for fear 
of getting even a drop of the mixture in it, but on this 
occasion it unfortunately happened that the man assisting 
him spoke to him and he was compelled to reply, but had 
no sooner opened his mouth to speak than the lamb made 
a violent struggle in his arms and splashed the water 
over his face and into his mouth. He got rid of it as 
quickly as he could, but soon began to feel bad, and before 
the work was over he had to sit down two or three times 
to rest. However, he struggled on to the finish, then took 
the flock home and went to his cottage. He could do 
no more. The farmer came to see what the matter was, 
and found him in a fever, with face and throat greatly 
swollen. "You look bad," he said; "you must be off 
to the doctor." But it was five miles to the village where 
the doctor lived, and Bawcombe replied that he couldn't 
go. "I'm too bad — I couldn't go, master, if you offered 
me money for it," he said. 

Then the farmer mounted his horse and went himself, 
and the doctor came. "No doubt," he said, "you've got 
some of the poison into your system and took a chill at 
the same time." The illness lasted six weeks, and then 
the shepherd resumed work, although still feeling very 
shaky. By and by when the opportunity came, he went 
to claim his sick pay — six shillings a week for the six 
weeks, his wages being then twelve shillings. Elijah 
flatly refused to pay him: his subscription, he said, had 
been due for several weeks and he had consequently for- 
feited his right to anything. In vain the shepherd ex- 
plained that he could not pay when lying ill at home 



302 . A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

with no money in the house and receiving no pay from 
the farmer. The old man remained obdurate, and with 
a very heavy heart the shepherd came out and found 
three or four of the villagers waiting in the road outside 
to hear the result of the application. They, too, were 
men who had been turned away from the club by the 
arbitrary secretary. Caleb was telling them about his 
interview when Elijah came out of the house and lean- 
ing over the front gate began to listen. The shepherd 
then turned towards him and said in a loud voice: "Mr. 
Elijah Raven, don't you think this is a tarrible hard 
case ! I've paid my subscription every quarter for thirty 
years and never had nothing from the fund except two 
weeks' pay when I were bad some years ago. Now I've 
been bad six weeks, and my master giv' me nothing for 
that time, and I've got the doctor to pay and nothing 
to live on. What am I to do?" 

Elijah stared at him in silence for some time, then 
spoke : "I told you in there I wouldn't pay you one penny 
of the money and I'll hold to what I said — in there I 
said it indoors, and I say again that indoors I'll never 
pay you — no, not one penny piece. But if I happen 
some day to meet you out of doors then I'll pay you. 
Now go." 

And go he did, very meekly, his wrath going down 
as he trudged home; for after all he would have his 
money 'by and by, although the hard old man would 
punish him for past offences by making him wait for it. 

A week or so went by, and then one day while passing 
through the village he saw Elijah coming towards him, 
and said to himself, Now I'll be paid! When the two 
men drew near together he cried out cheerfully, "Good 



THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE 303 

morning, Mr. Raven." The other without a word and 
without a pause passed by on his way, leaving the poor 
shepherd gazing crestfallen after him. 

After all he would not get his money! The question 
was discussed in the cottages, and by and by one of the 
villagers who was not so poor as most of them, and went 
occasionally to Salisbury, said he would ask an attorney's 
advice about the matter. He would pay for the advice 
out of his own pocket ; he wanted to know if Elijah could 
lawfully do such things. 

To the man's astonishment the attorney said that as 
the club was not registered and the members had them- 
selves made Elijah their head he could do as he liked — 
no action would lie against him. But if it was true and 
it could be proved that he had spoken those words about 
paying the shepherd his money if he met him out of 
doors, then he could be made to pay. He also said he 
would take the case up and bring it into court if a sum 
of five pounds was guaranteed to cover expenses in case 
the decision went against them. 

Poor Caleb, with twelve shillings a week to pay his 
debts and live on, could guarantee nothing, but by and 
by when the lawyer's opinion had been discussed at great 
length at the inn and in all the cottages in the village, 
it was found that several of Bawcombe's friends were 
willing to contribute something towards a guarantee 
fund, and eventually the sum of five pounds was raised 
and handed over to the person who had seen the lawyer. 

His first step was to send for Bawcombe, who had 
to get a day off and journey in the carrier's cart one 
market-day to Salisbury. The result was that action 
was taken, and in due time the case came on. Elijah 



304 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Raven was in court with two or three of his friends — 
small working farmers who had some interested motive 
in desiring to appear as his supporters. He, too, had 
engaged a lawyer to conduct his case. The judge, said 
Bawcombe, who had never seen one before, was a tar- 
rible stern-looking old man in his wig. The plaintiff's 
lawyer he did open the case and he did talk and talk a lot, 
but Elijah's counsel he did keep on interrupting him, 
and they two argued and argued, but the judge he never 
said no word, only he looked blacker and more tarrible 
stern. Then when the talk did seem all over, Bawcombe, 
ignorant of the forms, got up and said, "I beg your lord- 
ship's pardon, but may I speak?" He didn't rightly 
remember afterwards what he called him, but 'twere your 
lordship or your worship, he was sure. "Yes, certainly, 
you are here to speak," said the judge, and Bawcombe 
then gave an account of his interview with Elijah and of 
the conversation outside the house. 

Then up rose Elijah Raven, and in a loud voice ex- 
claimed, "Lord, Lord, what a sad thing it is to have 
to sit here and listen to this man's lies !" 

"Sit down, sir," thundered the judge; "sit down and 
hold your tongue, or I shall have you removed." 

Then Elijah's lawyer jumped up, and the judge told 
him he'd better sit down too because he knowed who the 
liar was in this case. "A brutal case !" he said, and that 
was the end, and Bawcombe got his six weeks' sick pay 
and expenses, and about three pounds besides, being his 
share of the society's funds which Elijah had been ad- 
vised to distribute to the members. 

And that was the end of the Winterbourne Bishop 
club, and from that time it has continued without one. 




CHAPTER XXIV 
Isaac's Children 

Isaac Bawcombe's family — The youngest son — Caleb 
goes to seek David at Wilton sheep-fair — Martha, 
the eldest daughter — Her beauty — She marries 
Shepherd Ierat — The name of Ierat — Story of Ellen 
Ierat — The Ierats go to Somerset — Martha and the 
lady of the manor — Martha's travels — Her mistress 
dies — Return to Winterbourne Bishop — Shepherd 
Ierat's end 



Caleb was one of five, the middle one, with a brother 
and sister older and a brother and sister younger than 
himself — a symmetrical family. I have already written 
incidentally of the elder brother and the youngest sister, 
and in this chapter will complete the history of Isaac's 
children by giving an account of the eldest sister and 
youngest brother. 

The brother was David, the hot-tempered young shep- 
herd who killed his dog Monk, and who afterwards 

305 



306 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

followed his brother to Warminster. In spite of his 
temper and "want of sense" Caleb was deeply attached 
to him, and when as an old man his shepherding days 
were finished he followed his wife to their new home, 
he grieved at being so far removed from his favourite 
brother. For some time he managed to make the journey 
to visit him once a year. Not to his home near War- 
minster, but to Wilton, at the time of the great annual 
sheep-fair held on 12 September. From his cottage he 
would go by the carrier's cart to the nearest town, and 
thence by rail with one or two changes by Salisbury to 
Wilton. 

After I became acquainted with Caleb he was ill and 
not likely to recover, and for over two years could not 
get about. During all this time he spoke often to me 
of his brother and wished he could see him. I won- 
dered why he did not write ; but he would not, nor would 
the other. These people of the older generation do not 
write to each other; years are allowed to pass without 
tidings, and they wonder and wish and talk of this and 
that absent member of the family, trusting it is well with 
them, but to write a letter never enters into their minds. 

At last Caleb began to mend and determined to go 
again to Wilton sheep - fair to look for his beloved 
brother ; to Warminster he could not go ; it was too far. 
September the 12th saw him once more at the old meet- 
ing-place, painfully making his slow way to that part 
of the ground where Shepherd David Bawcombe was 
accustomed to put his sheep. But he was not there. "I 
be here too soon," said Caleb, and sat himself patiently 
down to wait, but hours passed and David did not appear, 
so he got up and made his way about the fair in search 



ISAAC'S CHILDREN 307 

of him, but couldn't find 'n. Returning to the old spot 
he got into conversation with two young shepherds and 
told them he was waiting for his brother who always 
put his sheep in that part. "What be his name?" they 
asked, and when he gave it they looked at one another 
and were silent. Then one of them said, "Be you Shep- 
herd Caleb Bawcombe?" and when he had answered them 
the other said, "You'll not see your brother at Wilton 
to-day. We've come from Doveton, and knew he. You'll 
not see your brother no more. He be dead these two 
years." 

Caleb thanked them for telling him, and got up and 
went his way very quietly, and got back that night to 
his cottage. He was very tired, said his wife; he 
wouldn't eat and he wouldn't talk. Many days passed 
and he still sat in his corner and brooded, until the wife 
was angry and said she never knowed a man make so 
great a trouble over losing a brother. 'Twas not like 
losing a wife or a son, she said; but he answered not 
a word, and it was many weeks before that dreadful 
sadness began to wear off, and he could talk cheerfully 
once more of his old life in the village. 

Of the sister, Martha, there is much more to say ; her 
life was an eventful one as lives go in this quiet down- 
land country, and she was, moreover, distinguished above 
the others of the family by her beauty and vivacity. I 
only knew her when her age was over 80, in her native 
village where her life ended some time ago, but even at 
that age there was something of her beauty left and a 
good deal of her charm. She had a good figure still 
and was of a good height ; and had dark fine eyes, clear, 
dark, unwrinkled skin, a finely shaped face, and her 



308 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

grey hair once black was very abundant. Her manner, 
too, was very engaging. At the age of 25 she married 
a shepherd named Thomas Ierat — a surname I had not 
heard before and which made me wonder where were 
the Ierats in Wiltshire that in all my rambles among the 
downland villages I had never come across them, not even 
in the churchyards. Nobody knew — there were no Ierats 
except Martha Ierat, the widow, of Winterbourne Bishop 
and her son — nobody had ever heard of any other family 
of the name. I began to doubt that there ever had been 
such a name until quite recently when, on going over 
an old downland village church, the rector took me out 
to show me "a strange name" on a tablet let into the 
wall of the building outside. The name was Ierat and 
the date the seventeenth century. He had never seen 
the name excepting on that tablet. Who, then, was 
Martha's husband? It was a queer story which she 
would never have told me, but I had it from her brother 
and his wife. 

A generation before that of Martha, at a farm in 
the village of Bower Chalk on the Ebble, there was a 
girl named Ellen Ierat employed as a dairymaid. She 
was not a native of the village, and if her parentage and 
place of birth were ever known they have long passed 
out of memory. She was a good-looking, nice-tempered 
girl, and was much liked by her master and mistress, 
so that after she had been about two years in their service 
it came as a great shock to find that she was in the family 
way. The shock was all the greater when the fresh dis- 
covery was made one day that another unmarried woman 
in the house, who was also a valued servant, was in the 
same condition. The two unhappy women had kept 



ISAAC'S CHILDREN 309 

their secret from every one except from each other until 
it could be kept no longer, and they consulted together 
and determined to confess it to their mistress and abide 
the consequences. 

Who were the men? was the first question asked. 
There was only one — Robert Coombe, the shepherd, 
who lived at the farm-house, a slow, silent, almost in- 
articulate man, with a round head and flaxen hair; a 
bachelor of whom people were accustomed to say that 
he would never marry because no woman would have 
such a stolid, dull-witted fellow for a husband. But he 
was a good shepherd and had been many years on the 
farm, and it was altogether a terrible business. Forth- 
with the farmer got out his horse and rode to the downs 
to have it out with the unconscionable wretch who had 
brought that shame and trouble on them. He found 
him sitting on the turf eating his midday bread and bacon, 
with a can of cold tea at his side, and getting off his 
horse he went up to him and damned him for a scoundrel 
and abused him until he had no words left, then told his 
shepherd that he must choose between the two women 
and marry at once, so as to make an honest woman of 
one of the two poor fools; either he must do that or 
quit the farm forthwith. 

Coombe heard in silence and without a change in his 
countenance, masticating his food the while and washing 
it down with an occasional draught from his can, until 
he had finished his meal; then taking his crook he got 
up, and remarking that he would "think of it" went after 
his flock. 

The farmer rode back cursing him for a clod ; and in 
the evening Coombe, after folding his flock, came in to 



310 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

give his decision, and said he had thought of it and 
would take Jane to wife. She was a good deal older 
than Ellen and not so good-looking, but she belonged 
to the village and her people were there, and everybody 
knowed who Jane was, an' she was an old servant an' 
would be wanted on the farm. Ellen was a stranger 
among them, and being only a dairymaid was of less 
account than the other one. 

So it was settled, and on the following morning Ellen, 
the rejected, was told to take up her traps and walk. 

What was she to do in her condition, no longer to 
be concealed, alone and friendless in the world? She 
thought of Mrs. Poole, an elderly woman of Winter- 
bourne Bishop, whose children were grown up and away 
from home, who when staying at Bower Chalk some 
months before had taken a great liking for Ellen, and 
when parting with her had kissed her and said: "My 
dear, I lived among strangers too when I were a girl 
and had no one of my own, and know what 'tis." That 
was all; but there was nobody else, and she resolved to 
go to Mrs. Poole, and so laden with her few belongings 
she set out to walk the long miles over the downs to 
Winterbourne Bishop where she had never been. It was 
far to walk in hot August weather when she went that 
sad journey, and she rested at intervals in the hot shade 
of a furze-bush, haunted all day by the miserable fear 
that the woman she sought, of whom she knew so little, 
would probably harden her heart and close her door 
against her. But the good woman took compassion on 
her and gave her shelter in her poor cottage, and kept 
her till her child was born, in spite of all the women's 
bitter tongues. And in the village where she had found 



ISAAC'S CHILDREN 311 

refuge she remained to the end of her life, without a 
home of her own, but always in a room or two with 
her boy in some poor person's cottage. Her life was 
hard but not unpeaceful, and the old people, all dead and 
gone now, remembered Ellen as a very quiet, staid woman 
who worked hard for a living, sometimes at the wash-tub, 
but mostly in the fields, haymaking and harvesting and 
at other times weeding, or collecting flints, or with a 
spud or sickle extirpating thistles in the pasture-land. 
She worked alone or with other poor women, but with 
the men she had no friendships; the sharpest women's 
eyes in the village could see no fault in her in this respect ; 
if it had not been so, if she had talked pleasantly with 
them and smiled when addressed by them, her life would 
have been made a burden to her. She would have been 
often asked who her brat's father was. The dreadful 
experience of that day, when she had been cast out and 
was alone in the world, when, burdened with her unborn 
child, she had walked over the downs in the hot August 
weather, in anguish of apprehension, had sunk into her 
soul. Her very nature was changed, and in a man's 
presence her blood seemed frozen, and if spoken to she 
answered in monosyllables with her eyes on the earth. 
This was noted, with the result that all the village women 
were her good friends; they never reminded her of her 
fall, and when she died still young they grieved for her 
and befriended the little orphan boy she had left on their 
hands. 

He was then about 11 years old, and was a stout 
little fellow with a round head and flaxen hair like his 
father ; but he was not so stolid and not like him in char- 
acter; at all events his old widow in speaking of him 



312 



A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 



to me said that never in all his life did he do one unkind 
or unjust thing. He came from a long line of shepherds, 
and shepherding was perhaps almost instinctive in him; 
from his earliest boyhood the tremulous bleating of the 
sheep and half-muffled clink of the copper bells and the 
sharp bark of the sheep-dog had a strange attraction for 




him. He was always ready when a boy was wanted to 
take charge of a flock during a temporary absence of the 
shepherd, and eventually when only about 15 he was 
engaged as under-shepherd, and for the rest of his life 
shepherding was his trade. 

His marriage to Martha Bawcombe came as a surprise 
to the village, for though no one had any fault to find 
with Tommy Ierat there was a slur on him, and Martha, 
who was the finest girl in the place, might, it was thought, 



ISAAC'S CHILDREN 313 

have looked for some one better. But Martha had always 
liked Tommy; they were of the same age and had been 
playmates in their childhood; growing up together their 
childish affection had turned to love, and after they 
had waited some years and Tommy had a cottage and 
seven shillings a week, Isaac and his wife gave their 
consent and they were married. Still they felt hurt at 
being discussed in this way by the villagers, so that when 
Ierat was offered a place as shepherd at a distance from 
home, where his family history was not known, he was 
glad to take it and his wife to go with him, about a month 
after her child was born. 

The new place was in Somerset, thirty-five to forty 
miles from their native village, and Ierat as shepherd 
at the manor-house farm on a large estate would have 
better wages than he had ever had before and a nice 
cottage to live in. Martha was delighted with her new 
home — the cottage, the entire village, the great park 
and mansion close by, all made it seem like paradise to 
her. Better than everything was the pleasant welcome 
she received from the villagers, who looked in to make 
her acquaintance and seemed very much taken with her 
appearance and nice, friendly manner. They were all 
eager to tell her about the squire and his lady, who were 
young, and of how great an interest they took in their 
people and how much they did for them and how they 
were loved by everybody on the estate. 

It happens, oddly enough, that I became acquainted 
with this same man, the squire, over fifty years after 
the events I am relating, when he was past 80. This 
acquaintance came about by means of a letter he wrote 
me in reference to the habits of a bird or some such 



314 EA SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

small matter, a way in which I have become acquainted 
with scores — perhaps I should say hundreds — of persons 
in many parts of the country. He was a very fine man, 
the head of an old and distinguished county family; an 
ideal squire, and one of the few large landowners I have 
had the happiness to meet who was not devoted to that 
utterly selfish and degraded form of sport which consists 
in the annual rearing and subsequent slaughter of a host 
of pheasants. 

Now when Martha was entertaining half a dozen of 
her new neighbours who had come in to see her, and 
exhibited her baby to them and then proceeded to suckle 
it, they looked at one another and laughed, and one 
said, "J ust you wait till the lady at the mansion sees 'ee 
— she'll soon want 'ee to nurse her little one." 

What did they mean? They told her that the great 
lady was a mother too, and had a little sickly baby and 
wanted a nurse for it, but couldn't find a woman to 
please her. 

Martha fired up at that. Did they imagine, she asked, 
that any great lady in the world with all her gold could 
tempt her to leave her own darling to nurse another 
woman's! She would not do such a thing — she would 
rather leave the place than submit to it. But she didn't 
believe it — they had only said that to tease and frighten 
her! 

They laughed again, looking admiringly at her as she 
stood before them with sparkling eyes, flushed cheeks, 
and fine full bust, and only answered, "J ust y° u wait, 
my dear, till she sees 'ee." 

And very soon the lady did see her. The people at 
the manor were strict in their religious observances, and 



ISAAC'S CHILDREN 315 

it had been impressed on Martha that she had better 
attend at morning service on her first Sunday, and a 
girl was found by one of her neighbours to look after 
the baby in the meantime. And so when Sunday came 
she dressed herself in her best clothes and went to church 
with the others. The service over, the squire and his 
wife came out first and were standing in the path ex- 
changing greetings with their friends ; then as the others 
came out with Martha in the midst of the crowd the lady 
turned and fixed her eyes on her, and suddenly stepping 
out from the group she stopped Martha and said, "Who 
are you? — I don't remember your face." 

"No, ma'am," said Martha, blushing and curtsying. 
"I be the new shepherd's wife at the manor-house farm 
— we've only been here a few days." 

The other then said she had heard of her and that 
she was nursing her child, and she then told Martha to 
go to the mansion that afternoon as she had something 
to say to her. 

The poor young mother went in fear and trembling, 
trying to stiffen herself against the expected blandish- 
ments. 

Then followed the fateful interview. The lady was 
satisfied that she had got hold of the right person at 
last — the one in the world who would be able to save her 
precious little one "from to die," the poor pining infant 
on whose frail little life so much depended! She would 
feed it from her full, healthy breasts and give it some- 
thing of her own abounding, splendid life. Martha's 
own baby would do very well — there was nothing the 
matter with it, and it would flourish on "the bottle" or 
anything else, no matter what. All she had to do was 



316 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

to go back to her cottage and make the necessary arrange- 
ments, then come to stay at the mansion. 

Martha refused, and the other smiled; then Martha 
pleaded and cried and said she would never never leave 
her own child, and as all that had no effect she was 
angry, and it came into her mind that if the lady would 
get angry too she would be ordered out and all would 
be over. But the lady wouldn't get angry, for when 
Martha stormed she grew more gentle and spoke tenderly 
and sweetly, but would still have it her own way, until 
the poor young mother could stand it no longer, and so 
rushed away in a great state of agitation to tell her hus- 
band and ask him to help her against her enemy. But 
Tommy took the lady's side, and his young wife hated 
him for it, and was in despair and ready to snatch up 
her child and run away from them all, when all at once 
a carriage appeared at the cottage, and the great lady 
herself, followed by a nurse with the sickly baby in her 
arms, came in. She had come, she said very gently, 
almost pleadingly, to ask Martha to feed her child once, 
and Martha was flattered and pleased at the request, and 
took and fondled the infant in her arms, then gave it 
suck at her beautiful breast. And when she had fed the 
child, acting very tenderly towards it like a mother, her 
visitor suddenly burst into tears, and taking Martha in 
her arms she kissed her and pleaded with her again until 
she could resist no more ; and it was settled that she was 
to live at the mansion and come once every day to the 
village to feed her own child from the breast. 

Martha's connexion with the people at the mansion 
did not end when she had safely reared the sickly child. 
The lady had become attached to her and wanted to have 



ISAAC'S CHILDREN 317, 

her always, although Martha could not act again as wet 
nurse, for she had no more children herself. And by 
and by when her mistress lost her health after the birth 
of a third child and was ordered abroad, she took Martha 
with her, and she passed a whole year with her on the 
Continent, residing in France and Italy. They came 
home again, but as the lady continued to decline in health 
she travelled again, still taking Martha with her, and 
they visited India and other distant countries, including 
the Holy Land; but travel and wealth and all that the 
greatest physicians in the world could do for her, and 
the tender care of a husband who worshipped her, availed 
not, and she came home in the end to die; and Martha 
went back to her Tommy and the boy, to be separated 
no more while their lives lasted. 

The great house was shut up and remained so for 
years. The squire was the last man in England to shirk 
his duties as landlord and to his people whom he loved, 
and who loved him as few great landowners are loved 
in England, but his grief was too great for even his 
great strength to bear up against, and it was long feared 
by his friends that he would never recover from his loss. 
But he was healed in time, and ten years later married 
again and returned to his home, to live there until nigh 
upon his ninetieth year. Long before this the Ierats had 
returned to their native village. When I last saw Martha, 
then in her eighty-second year, she gave me the follow- 
ing account of her Tommy's end. 

He continued shepherding up to the age of 78. One 
Sunday, early in the afternoon, when she was ill with 
an attack of influenza, he came home, and putting aside 
his crook said, "I've done work." 



318 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

"It's early," she replied, "but maybe you got the boy 
to mind the sheep for you." 

"I don't mean I've done work for the day," he returned. 
"I've done for good — I'll not go with the flock no more." 

"What be saying?" she cried in sudden alarm. "Be 
you feeling bad — what be the matter?" 

"No, I'm not bad," he said. "I'm perfectly well, but 
I've done work;" and more than that he would not say. 

She watched him anxiously but could see nothing 
wrong with him; his appetite was good, he smoked his 
pipe, and was cheerful. 

Three days later she noticed that he had some difficulty 
in pulling on a stocking when dressing in the morning, 
and went to his assistance. He laughed and said, "Here's 
a funny thing ! You be ill and I be well, and you've got 
to help me put on a stocking !" and he laughed again. 

After dinner that day he said he wanted a drink and 
would have a glass of beer. There was no beer in the 
house, and she asked him if he would have a cup of tea. 

"Oh, yes, that'll do very well," he said, and she made 
it for him. 

After drinking his cup of tea he got a footstool, and 
placing it at her feet sat down on it and rested his head 
on her knees; he remained a long time in this position 
so perfectly still that she at length bent over and felt 
and examined his face, only to discover that he was 
dead. 

And that was the end of Tommy Ierat, the son of 
Ellen. He died, she said, like a baby that has been fed 
and falls asleep on its mother's breast. 




CHAPTER XXV 
Living in the Past 

Evening talks — On the construction of sheep-folds — 
Making hurdles — Devil's guts — Character in sheep- 
dogs — Sally, the spiteful dog — Dyke, the lost dog 
who returned — Strange recovery of a lost dog — Bad- 
ger, the playful dog — Badger shepherds the fowls — 
A ghost story — A Sunday-evening talk—Parsons and 
ministers — Noisy religion — The shepherd's love of 
his calling — Mark Dick and the giddy sheep — Con- 
clusion 

During our frequent evening talks, often continued till 
a late hour, it was borne in on Caleb Bawcombe that his 
anecdotes of wild creatures interested me more than 
anything else he had to tell ; but in spite of this, or because 
he could not always bear it in mind, the conversation 
almost invariably drifted back to the old subject of 
sheep, of which he was never tired. Even in his sleep 

319 



320 m SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

he does not forget them ; his dreams, he says, are always 
about sheep; he is with the flock, shifting the hurdles, 
or following it out on the down. A troubled dream, 
when he is ill or uneasy in his sleep is invariably about 
some difficulty with the flock; it gets out of his control, 
and the dog cannot understand him or refuses to obey 
when everything depends on his instant action. The 
subject was so much to him, so important above all others, 
that he would not spare the listener even the minutest 
details of the shepherd's life and work. His "hints on 
the construction of sheep-folds" would have filled a 
volume; and if any farmer had purchased the book he 
would not have found the title a misleading one and that 
he had been defrauded of his money. But with his 
singular fawnlike face and clear eyes on his listener it 
was impossible to fall asleep, or even to let the attention 
wander; and incidentally even in his driest discourse 
there were little bright touches which one would not 
willingly have missed. 

About hurdles he explained that it was common for 
the downland shepherds to repair the broken and worn- 
out ones with the long woody stems of the bithy-wind 
from the hedges; and when I asked what the plant was 
he described the wild clematis or traveller's-joy; but 
those names he did not know — to him the plant had 
always been known as bithywind or else Devil's guts. 
It struck me that bithywind might have come by the 
transposition of two letters from withybind, as if one 
should say flutterby for butterfly, or flagondry for drag- 
onfly. Withybind is one of the numerous vernacular 
names of the common convolvulus. Lilybind is another. 
But what would old Gerarde, who invented the pretty 



LIVING IN THE PAST 321 

name of traveller's-joy for that ornament of the wayside 
hedges, have said to such a name as Devil's guts? 

There was, said Caleb, an old farmer in the parish 
of Bishop who had a peculiar fondness for this plant, 
and if a shepherd pulled any of it out of one of his 
hedges after leafing-time he would be very much put out ; 
he would shout at him, "Just, you leave my Devil's guts 
alone or I'll not keep you on the farm." And the shep- 
herds in revenge gave him the unpleasant nickname of 
"Old Devil's Guts," by which he was known in that part 
of the country. 

As a rule, talk about sheep, or any subject connected 
with sheep, would suggest something about sheep-dogs 
— individual dogs he had known or possessed, and who 
always had their own character and peculiarities, like 
human beings. They were good and bad and indifferent ; 
a really bad dog was a rarity; but a fairly good dog 
might have some trick or vice or weakness. There was 
Sally, for example, a stump-tail bitch, as good a dog 
with sheep as he ever possessed, but you had to consider 
her feelings. She would keenly resent any injustice from 
her master. If he spoke too sharply to her, or rebuked 
her unnecessarily for going a little out of her way just 
to smell at a rabbit burrow, she would nurse her anger 
until an opportunity came of inflicting a bite on some 
erring sheep. Punishing her would have made matters 
worse: the only way was to treat her as a reasonable 
being and never to speak to her as a dog — a mere 
slave. 

Dyke was another dog he remembered well. He be- 
longed to old Shepherd Matthew Titt, who was head- 
shepherd at a farm near Warminster, adjacent to the 



322 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

one where Caleb worked. Old Mat and his wife lived 
alone in their cottage out of the village, all their children 
having long grown up and gone away to a distance from 
home, and being so lonely "by their two selves" they 
loved their dog just as others love their relations. But 
Dyke deserved it, for he was a very good dog. One year 
Mat was sent by his master with lambs to Weyhill, the 
little village near Andover, where a great sheep-fair is 
held in October every year. It was distant over thirty 
miles, but Mat though old was a strong man still and 
greatly trusted by his master. From this journey he 
returned with a bad heart, for he had lost Dyke. He 
had disappeared one night while they were at Weyhill. 
Old Mrs. Titt cried for him as she would have cried for 
a lost son, and for many a long day they went about 
with heavy hearts. 

Just a year had gone by when one night the old woman 
was roused from sleep by loud knocks on the window- 
pane of the living-room below. "Mat ! Mat !" she cried, 
shaking him vigorously, "wake up — old Dyke has come 
back to us!" "What be you talking about?" growled 
the old shepherd. "Lie down and go to sleep — you've 
been dreaming." " 'Tain't no dream; 'tis Dyke — I know 
his knock," she cried, and getting up she opened the 
window and put her head well out, and there sure enough 
was Dyke, standing up against the wall and gazing up 
at her, and knocking with his paw against the window 
below. 

Then Mat jumped up, and going together downstairs 
they unbarred the door and embraced the dog with joy, 
and the rest of the night was spent in feeding and caress- 
ing him, and asking him a hundred questions, which he 



LIVING IN THE PAST 323 

could only answer by licking their hands and wagging 
his tail. 

It was supposed that he had been stolen at the fair, 
probably by one of the wild, little, lawless men called 
"general dealers," who go flying about the country in 
a trap drawn by a fast-trotting pony; that he had been 
thrown, muffled up, into the cart and carried many a 
mile away, and sold to some shepherd, and that he had 
lost his sense of direction. But after serving a stranger 
a full year he had been taken with sheep to Weyhill 
Fair once more, and once there he knew where he was, 
and had remembered the road leading to his old home 
and master, and making his escape had travelled the thirty 
long miles back to Warminster. 

The account of Dyke's return reminded me of an 
equally good story of the recovery of a lost dog which 
I heard from a shepherd on the Avon. He had been 
lost over a year, when one day the shepherd, being out 
on the down with his flock, stood watching two drovers 
travelling with a flock on the turnpike road below, nearly 
a mile away, and by and by .hearing one of their dogs 
bark he knew at that distance that it was his dog. "I 
haven't a doubt," he said to himself, "and if I know his 
bark he'll know my whistle." With that he thrust two 
fingers in his mouth and blew his shrillest and longest 
whistle, then waited the result. Presently he spied a 
dog, still at a great distance, coming swiftly towards 
him; it was his own dog, mad with joy at finding his 
old master. 

Did ever two friends, long sundered by unhappy chance, 
recognize each other's voices at such a distance and so 
come together once more ! 



324 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

Whether the drovers had seen him desert them or 
not, they did not follow to recover him, nor did the 
shepherd go to them to find out how they had got pos- 
session of him; it was enough that he had got his dog 
back. 

No doubt in this case the dog had recognized his old 
home when taken by it, but he was in another man's 
hands now, and the habits and discipline of a life made 
it impossible for him to desert until that old, familiar 
and imperative call reached his ears and he could not 
disobey. 

Then (to go on with Caleb's reminiscences) there was 
Badger, owned by a farmer and worked for some years 
by Caleb — the very best stump-tail he ever had to help 
him. This dog differed from others in his vivacious 
temper and ceaseless activity. When the sheep were 
feeding quietly and there was little or nothing to do 
for hours at a time, he would not lie down and go to 
sleep like any other sheep-dog, but would spend his vacant 
time "amusing of hisself" on some smooth slope where 
he could roll over and over ; then run back and roll over 
again and again, playing by himself just like a child. 
Or he would chase a butterfly or scamper about over the 
down hunting for large white flints, which he would 
bring one by one and deposit them at his master's feet, 
pretending they were something of value and greatly 
enjoying the game. This dog, Caleb said, would make 
him laugh every day with his games and capers. 

When Badger got old his sight and hearing failed; 
yet when he was very nearly blind and so deaf that he 
could not hear a word of command, even when it was 
shouted out quite close to him, he was still kept with the 



LIVING IN THE PAST 325 

flock because he was so intelligent and willing. But he 
was too old at last ; it was time for him to be put out of 
the way. The farmer, however, who owned him, would 
not consent to have him shot, and so the wistful old 
dog was ordered to keep at home at the farm-house. 
Still he refused to be superannuated, and not allowed to 
go to the flock he took to shepherding the fowls. In 
the morning he would drive them out to their run and 
keep them there in a flock, going round and round them 
by the hour, and furiously hunting back the poor hens 
that tried to steal off to lay their eggs in some secret 
place. This could not be allowed, and so poor old Badger, 
who would have been too miserable if tied up, had to 
be shot after all. 

These were always his best stories — his recollections 
of sheep-dogs, for of all creatures, sheep alone excepted, 
he knew and loved them best. Yet for one whose life 
had been spent in that small isolated village and on the 
bare down about it, his range was pretty wide, and it 
even included one memory of a visitor from the other 
world. Let him tell it in his own words. 

"Many say they don't believe there be such things 
as ghosties. They niver see'd 'n. An' I don't say I 
believe or disbelieve what I hear tell. I warn't there to 
see. I only know what I see'd myself: but I don't say 
that it were a ghostie or that it wasn't one. I was com- 
ing home late one night from the sheep; 'twere close 
on 'leven o'clock, a very quiet night, with moon sheen 
that made it a'most like day. Near th' end of the village 
I come to the stepping-stones, as we call 'n, where there 
be a gate and the road, an' just by the road the four 
big white stones for people going from the village to 



326 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

the copse an' the down on t'other side to step over the 
water. In winter 'twas a stream there, but the water 
it dried in summer, and now 'twere summer-time and 
there wur no water. When I git there I see'd two 
women, both on 'em tall, with black gowns on, an' big 
bonnets they used to wear; an' they were standing face 
to face so close that the tops o' their bonnets wur a'most 
touching together. Who be these women out so late? 
says I to myself. Why, says I, they be Mrs. Durk from 
up the village an' Mrs. Gaarge Durk, the keeper's wife 
down by the copse. Then I thought I know'd how 
'twas: Mrs. Gaarge, she'd a been to see Mrs. Durk in 
the village, and Mrs. Durk she were coming out a leetel 
way with her, so far as the stepping-stones, and they 
wur just having a last leetel talk before saying Good 
night. But mind, I hear'd no talking when I passed 'n. 
An' I'd hardly got past 'n before I says, Why, what 
a fool be I! Mrs. Durk she be dead a twelvemonth, 
an' I were in the churchyard and see'd her buried myself. 
Whatever be I thinking of? That made me stop and 
turn round to look at 'n agin. An' there they was just 
as I see'd 'n at first — Mrs. Durk, who was dead a twelve- 
month, an' Mrs. Gaarge Durk from the copse, standing 
there with their bonnets a'most touching together. An' 
I couldn't hear nothing — no talking, they were so still 
as two posties. Then something came over me like a 
tarrible coldness in the blood and down my back, an' 
I were afraid, and turning I runned faster than I ever 
runned in my life, an' never stopped — not till I got to 
the cottage." 

It was not a bad ghost story: but then such stories 
seldom are when coming from those who have actually 



LIVING IN THE PAST 327 

seen, or believe they have seen, an immaterial being. 
Their principal charm is in their infinite variety; you 
never find two real or true ghost stories quite alike, and 
in this they differ from the weary inventions of the 
fictionist. 

But invariably the principal subject was sheep. 

"I did always like sheep," said Caleb. "Some did 
say to me that they couldn't abide shepherding because 
of the Sunday work. But I always said, Someone must 
do it; they must have food in winter and water in sum- 
mer, and must be looked after, and it can't be worse for 
me to do it." 

It was on a Sunday afternoon, and the distant sound 
of the church bells had set him talking on this subject. 
He told me how once, after a long interval, he went to 
the Sunday morning service in his native village, and 
the vicar preached a sermon about true religion. Just 
the going to church, he said, did not make men religious. 
Out there on the downs there were shepherds who sel- 
dom saw the inside of a church, who were sober, righteous 
men and walked with God every day of their lives. 
Caleb said that this seemed to touch his heart because 
he knowed it was true. 

When I asked him if he would not change the church 
for the chapel, now he was ill and his vicar paid him 
no attention, while the minister came often to see and 
talk to him, as I had witnessed, he shook his head and 
said that he would never change. He then added: "We 
always say that the chapel ministers are good men: some 
say they be better than the parsons; but all I've knowed 
— all them that have talked to me — have said bad things 



328 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

of the Church, and that's not true religion: I say that 
the Bible teaches different." 

Caleb could not have had a very wide experience, and 
most of us know Dissenting ministers who are wholly 
free from the fault he pointed out; but in the purely 
rural districts, in the small villages where the small men 
are found, it is certainly common to hear unpleasant 
things said of the parish priest by his Nonconformist 
rival ; and should the parson have some well-known fault 
or make a slip, the other is apt to chuckle over it with a 
very manifest and most unchristian delight. 

The atmosphere on that Sunday afternoon was very 
still, and by and by through the open window floated 
a strain of music; it was from the brass band of the 
Salvationists who were marching through the next vil- 
lage, about two miles away. We listened, then Caleb 
remarked: "Somehow I never cared to go with them 
Army people. Many say they've done a great good, and 
I don't disbelieve it, but there was too much what I call 
— noise; if, sir, you can understand what I mean." 

I once heard the great Dr. Parker speak the word 
imagination, or, as he pronounced it, im-madge-i-na- 
shun, with a volume of sound which filled a large build- 
ing and made the quality he named seem the biggest 
thing in the universe. That in my experience was his 
loftiest oratorical feat; but I think the old shepherd rose 
to a greater height when, after a long pause during which 
he filled his lungs with air, he brought forth the tre- 
mendous word, dragging it out gratingly, so as to illus- 
trate the sense in the prolonged harsh sound. 

To show him that I understood what he meant very 
well, I explained the philosophy of the matter as follows. 



LIVING IN THE PAST 329 

He was a shepherd of the downs, who had lived always 
in a quiet atmosphere, a noiseless world, and from life- 
long custom had become a lover of quiet. The Salvation 
Army was born in a very different world, in East Lon- 
don — the dusty, busy, crowded world of streets, where 
men wake at dawn to sounds that are like the opening 
of hell's gates, and spend their long strenuous days and 
their lives in that atmosphere peopled with innumerable 
harsh noises, until they, too, acquire the noisy habit, and 
come at last to think that if they have anything to say 
to their fellows, anything to sell or advise or recommend, 
from the smallest thing — from a mackerel or a cabbage 
or a penn'orth of milk, to a newspaper or a book or a 
picture or a religion — they must howl and yell it out at 
every passer-by. And the human voice not being suf- 
ficiently powerful, they provide themselves with bells 
and gongs and cymbals and trumpets and drums to help 
them in attracting the attention of the public. 

He listened gravely to this outburst, and said he didn't 
know exactly 'bout that, but agreed that it was very 
quiet on the downs, and that he loved their quiet. "Fifty 
years," he said, "I've been on the downs and fields, day 
and night, seven days a week, and I've been told that it's 
a poor way to spend a life, working seven days for ten 
or twelve, or at most thirteen shillings. But I never 
seen it like that; I liked it, and I always did my best. 
You see, sir, I took a pride in it. I never left a place 
but I was asked to stay. When I left it was because of 
something I didn't like. I couldn't never abide cruelty 
to a dog or any beast. And I couldn't abide bad lan- 
guage. If my master swore at the sheep or the dog 
I wouldn't bide with he — no, not for a pound a week. 



330 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

I liked my work, and I liked knowing things about sheep. 
Not things in books, for I never had no books, but what 
I found out with my own sense, if you can understand 
me. 

"I remember, when I were young, a very old shepherd 
on the farm ; he had been more'n forty years there, and 
he was called Mark Dick. He told me that when he 




FOLDING FOR TME NIGHT 



were a young man he was once putting the sheep in the 
fold, and there was one that was giddy — a young ewe. 
She was always a-turning round and round and round, 
and when she got to the gate she wouldn't go in but kept 
on a-turning and turning, until at last he got angry and, 
lifting his crook, gave her a crack on the head, and down 
she went, and he thought he'd killed her. But in a little 
while up she jumps and trotted straight into the fold, 
and from that time she were well. Next day he told 
his master, and his master said, with a laugh, 'Well, 
now you know what to do when you gits a giddy sheep.' 
Some time after that Mark Dick he had another giddy 



LIVING IN THE PAST 331 

one, and remembering what his master had said, he 
swung his stick and gave he a big crack on the skull, 
and down went the sheep, dead. He'd killed it this 
time, sure enough. When he tells of this one his master 
said, 'You've cured one and you've killed one; now 
don't you try to cure no more,' he says. 

"Well, some time after that I had a giddy one in my 
flock. I'd been thinking of what Mark Dick had told 
me, so I caught the ewe to see if I could find out any- 
thing. I were always a tarrible one for examining sheep 
when they were ill. I found this one had a swelling at 
the back of her head; it were like a soft ball, bigger 'n 
a walnut. So I took my knife and opened it, and out 
ran a lot of water, quite clear; and when I let her go 
she ran quite straight, and got well. After that I did 
cure other giddy sheep with my knife, but I found out 
there were some I couldn't cure. They had no swelling, 
and was giddy because they'd got a maggot on the brain 
or some other trouble I couldn't find out." 

Caleb could not have finished even this quiet Sunday 
afternoon conversation, in the course of which we had 
risen to lofty matters, without a return to his old favour- 
ite subjects of sheep and his shepherding life on the 
downs. He was long miles away from his beloved home 
now, lying on his back, a disabled man who would never 
again follow a flock on the hills nor listen to the sounds 
he loved best to hear — the multitudinous tremulous Heat- 
ings of the sheep, the tinklings of numerous bells, and 
crisp ringing bark of his dog. But his heart was there 
still, and the images of past scenes were more vivid in 
him than they can ever be in the minds of those who 
live in towns and read books. "I can see it now," was 



332 A SHEPHERD'S LIFE 

a favourite expression of his when relating some incident 
in his past life. Whenever a sudden light, a kind of 
smile, came into his eyes, I knew that it was at some 
ancient memory, a touch of quaintness or humour in 
some farmer or shepherd he had known in the vanished 
time — his father, perhaps, or old John, or Mark Dick, 
or Liddy, or Dan'l Burdon, the solemn seeker after 
buried treasure. 

After our long Sunday talk we were silent for a time, 
and then he uttered these impressive words: "I don't 
say that I want to have my life again, because 'twould 
be sinful. We must take what is sent. But if 'twas 
offered to me and I was told to choose my work, I'd 
say, Give me my Wiltsheer Downs again and let me be 
a shepherd there all my life long." 






"1 






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white aim tun. Mm du amnawiw mm 




JUO 



INDEX 

Adders, sheep-dog's enmity to, 67; effect of bite, 273. 

Agricultural machinery, outbreak against, 195. 

Aldermaston, 280. 

Alvediston, village on the Ebble, 8. 

Antiquaries, Society of, at Old Sarum, 21. 

Apollo of the Downs, an, 34. 

Avon, river, 8, 9, 18, 25, 224. 

Barford St. Martin, on the Nadder, 210. 

Barley bannocks, playing at ball with, 220-1. 

Barrows, destroyed by cultivation and by rabbits, 15, 16; on Bishop 
Down, 40, 43. 

Bawcombe, Caleb: his life-story, 45-53; earliest shepherding experi- 
ence, 65; his mother, 68; his younger brother David, 160, 165, 305; 
at Doveton Farm, on the Wylye, 190; in Dorsetshire, 238; return 
to Winterbourne Bishop, 240; his elder brother Joseph, 240-1; 
his eldest sister Martha, 307; memories, 319. 

Isaac. Caleb's father, history of, 51-55; his children, 66; great 

Strength, 73; deer-poaching, 79-82; early instruction in the 
Bible, 141-4. 

Bird life on the Downs, 116-26. 

Bird-scarer, the, 4; small boy as, 217. 

"Birds of Wiltshire," 120. 

Bishop Down, human bones thrown out by rabbit on, 42. 

Bithywind, local name of clematis, 320. 

Bourne, river, 9-25. 

Bower Chalk, village of, on the Ebble, 308. 

Britford, sheep fair, 69. 

Broad Chalk, village on the Ebble, 13. 

Brown thrush, 126. 

Bustard, a memory and a place-name, 116. 

Buzzard, common, at Savernake, 117. 

Caste feeling, 49. 

Cats: trout-fishing, 174; killed by train, 175; character of Gip, 176; 
a rat -destroyer, 178; gipsies' cats, 178-9; Sir Henry Wyatt's 
cat, 180-1 ; hunting cats, 181 ; poaching cat at Fonthill Bishop, 
183 ; a farmer's cats, 185 ; fatal weakness in cats, 186-9. 
333 



334 INDEX 

Chilmark, village of, 234. 

Chitterne, village of, 224. 

Church bells, legend of stolen, 239. 

Clarke's "For the Term of his Natural Life," 221. 

Clematis, wild, local names of, 320. 

Codford St. Peter, on the Wylye, 148. 

Combe Bissit, village on the Ebble, 8. 

Compton Chamberlain, village on the Nadder, 120. 

Constable, painting of Salisbury Cathedral, 19. 

Corn-crake, caught by sheep-dog, 164. 

Coroner, an obsequious, 234. 

Cranborne Chase, 84, 118 

Dark people in Wiltshire, three types of, 257; history of the Tarks, 

258-63. 
Death following death in aged couples, 55. 
Deer, fallow, in Cranborne Chase, 84; roe, 284. 
Deer-stealing, 79; a keeper tricked, 87-8; fights with poachers, 88; 

Reed of Odstock, 206. 
Devil, the, in a black cap, 229; church bells stolen by, 239. 
Devil's guts, name for clematis, 320. 
Di-dapper, 183. 

Donkeys, poisoned by yew, 77. 
Doveton, village on the Wylye, 144; farm, 190. 
Downs, aspects of the, 2, 6; effect of the plough, 15; silence of 

the, 328. 
Downton, village on the Avon, 8. 
Druid's Head, the, on Salisbury Plain, 223. 

Earthworks, destroyed by cultivation, 15; on Winterbourne Bishop 

Down, 81. 
Ebble, or Ebele, river, 4, 8, 25. 

Fieldfare, nesting in Wilts, 122. 

Firewood-gathering, 211. 

Flowers, cottage garden, 153; wild in Wylye vale, 154. 

Flycatchers, habits of, 203. 

Fonthill Bishop, 183, 201. 

Found, the surname of, 87. 

Fovant, village on the Nadder, 280. 

Foxes, trapping, 104; gamekeepers on, 105; foxes versus pheasants, 

106; Caleb kills a fox, 108; two varieties of, 110; playful spirits 

in, 111-3; a danger to sheep when hunted, 115. 
Fox-hound turning wild, 279. 

Gathergood, wisdom of shepherd, 101-4. 
Gazalee, Mr. Justice, at the Salisbury Assizes, 229. 



INDEX 335 

Gerarde, the herbalist, 320. 

Ghosts, the shepherd on, 325. 

Gilpin, on scenery, 2-3. 

Gipsies, liking for cats in, 179; south of England, 248; dislike of 

a settled life, 250 ; sense of humour in, 250 ; carrion eating, 252 ; 

stolen goods buried by, 253; supposed secret knowledge, 256; as 

naturalists, 287-9. 
Goshawk in Fonthill Bishop Woods, 118. 
Gray hairs, from old age, in dogs, 169; in a mole, 170. 
Grayling, in the Wylye, 158. 
Great Ridge Wood, rabbits in, 212; roe deer, 284. 
Greenfinches, 158. 
Groveley Wood, 210. 

Harbutt, keeper, 85; fight with poachers, 88. 

Hares, poached by shepherds, 95; fond of black-thorn twigs, 102; 

catching, with a shepherd's crook, 102; sitting on stumps, 285. 
Hawks, extermination of, 117. 
Hedge-fruit, 36. 
Hedgehogs, a hunter of, 246; eaters of, 248; gipsies love of flesh of, 

287; unknown habits of, 288. 
Heytesbury, Wylye vale, village of, 151. 
Hindon, decay of, 201; smugglers at, 203; birds in, 202. 
Hoare, Sir Richard Colt, barrows opened by, 43. 
Hounds, method of feeding, 118. 

Iberian types in Wiltshire, 257. 
Ierat, surname of, 308; history of Ellen, 308-12. 
Imber, village of, and Imber Court Farm, 171. 
Infirmary, the Salisbury, 26. 

Jarvis, the village blacksmith, 73. 
Joan, story of the aged villager, 214. 

King's Copse, New Forest, 113. 

Knook, on the Wylye, church and manor-house of, 151. 

Lamb suckled by sheep-dog, 72. 
Lamb Inn, Hindon, 202. 
Lilybind, name of convolvulus, 320. 
London, image of, on the mind, 23. 
Lord Lovell, story of the last, 149. 
Lower Pertwood Farm, 205. 

Magistrates, severity of, 229. 

Magpies, 122 ; destroyed by gamekeepers, 123 ; at Winterbourne 
Bishop, 123. 



336 INDEX 

Marlborough, 1 ; Downs, 8. 

Mere Down, 125-32. 

Mistle-thrush, 122. 

Mobs in 1831, 195; their suppression, 232; at Pytt House, 233. 

Monkton Deverill, 206. 

Moorhen, 183. 

Nadder, river, 9, 10, 145. 

Norton Bavant, village on the Wylye, 148. 

Oldstock, village on the Ebble, 8, 206. 

Old Father Time, 209. 

Old Joe, the collier, 74. 

Old Nance, the rook-scarer, 166-7. 

Old Sarum, 19; excavations at, 20. 

Open air, pleasures of the, 3. 

Overrunner, see Shrew. 

Owl, long-eared, 113, 291 ; white, in the village, 297. 

Pamba wood, 279. 

Park, Mr. Justice, severity of, 228. 

Peat, used as fuel, 75. 

Percival, Mr., resolution by, in House of Commons, 230. 

Pewsey, vale of, 8. 

Pheasant, preserving the, effects of, 106. 

Plantain, flowering habit of, 10. 

Poaching, the moral law and, 93; village, 97; on the Downs, 101-3. 

Psalm, the hundred and ninth, 197. 

Raven, Elijah, master of the village, 295-304. 

Ravens: former abundance, 124; attracted by carrion, 118-9; fighting, 

119; former nesting sites, 120; in Great Ridge Wood, 120. 
Rawlings, strange character of farmer, 205. 
Roe deer, 284. 
Rooks, abundance on the downs, 124 ; feasting on corn, 125 ; attacking 

root crops, 291. 

Salisbury, five rivers of, 8, 9; the feeling for, 17; Leland's description 
of, 22; view of, from Old Sarum, 22; market-day at, 23; streets, 
inns, and cathedral, 27 ; street scene at, 32. 

Salisbury cathedral, seen from the meadows, 18; spire and rainbow, 
19; action of the dean and chapter, 21; interior, effect on the 
child mind, 28. 

"Salisbury Journal," 279. 

Salisbury Plain: limits of, 8; effect of military occupation, 10; cul- 
tivation, 14; destruction of barrows and earthworks, 15; great 
rookery, 124. 



INDEX 337 

Sheep, effect of, on the downs, 8, 9; Old Wiltshire breed, 11; South 
Down and Hampshire Down breeds, 12; the shepherd's love of, 
327; singular cure for giddiness in, 331. 

Sheep-bells, purpose of, 129-32. 

Sheep-dogs : old Welsh breed in Wilts, 13 ; Jack, the adder-killer, 
67; Rough, the bobtail, 68-72; an acquired conscience in, 96; 
Monk, the fox-killer, 109; his tragic end, 160-1; life story of 
Watch, 159-71; training, 264, 267-8, 274; history of Tory, 268; 
Bob, effect of adder-bite on, 272; Tramp, the stray, 276-282; 
return to wildness, 277 ; Sally, the stump-tail, 321 ; Dyke, a hom- 
ing dog, 321-2; lost dog recovered, 323; history of Badger, 324-5. 

Sheep-stealing, in the past, 221-2; temptations to, 222; anecdotes of, 
222-4. 

Shepherd, sheep following, 131-3; bible-reading, 138-44. 

Shergold, surname of, 224. 

Shrew, 290. 

Silchester, Forest of, 279. 

Smith, Rev. A. C, "Birds of Wiltshire," 120. 

South Downs, 2, 7. 

Sparrowhawk, starlings preyed on by, 128. 

Starling, the shepherd's favourite bird, 126; taking refuge among 
the sheep, 126; music of, 127; imitations and bell-like sounds 
produced by, 129. 

Stone curlew, 117. 

Stonehenge, 10. 

Surnames in Wilts, 61-3, 308. 

Sutton Veney, Wylye vale village, 148. 

Swallow, a sheep dog chasing a, 270. 

Tilshead, village of, 8, 225. 

Tisbury, 202. 

Titlark, story of a, 50. 

Tollard Royal, 8. 

Towns in Wilts, names of, 145. 

Treasure-seeker, a, 137. 

Turtledove, 123. 

Tytherington, story of a dog at, 148. 

Upton Lovell, village on the Wylye, 149. 

Villages, Wylye vale, 147. 

Warminster, 145-6. 

Warner, Richard, of Bath, works by, 133; on a Cornish custom, 133. 

Watch, life story of a sheep-dog, 159-71. 

Water, in the village, perennial streams and winterbournes, 36. 

West Knoyle, 124. 



338 INDEX 

White Sheet Hill, 8; shepherd and sheep, 132. 

Wild life on Salisbury Plain, destruction of, 10. 

Wilsetae, 257. 

Wilton, tree-shaded road, 19; junction of Wylye and Nadder at, 145; 

sheep fair, 306. 
Wiltshire, not a favourite county, 1. 
Winterbourne Bishop, the favourite village, 34-8; home feeling in, 

41 ; a village without a squire, 294 ; the village master, 294 ; benefit 

society in, 299. 
Wish ford, a Wylye vale village, 210. 
Wyatt, Sir Henry, fed by a cat, 180. 
Wylye, river and vale of, 8, 9, 10, 18, 25; villages, 147; churches, 

148; manor houses, 150; cottages and cottage gardens, 152-5. 

Yarnborough Castle, 236. 



